


The Writing on the Wall

by TheScorpion



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Drunkenness, F/M, Gen, Love Triangles, Murder, Murder Mystery, Team Bonding, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheScorpion/pseuds/TheScorpion
Summary: Someone commits murder at the Opera in Christine's name, and she does not know which of her two jealous suitors is the more likely suspect.





	1. Lord d'Arcy is an Imbecile

"Erik… Did you know they were casting for the new opera today?"

Christine's mysterious guardian and voice teacher looked up from the score he was marking. "No. I assure you, I was as surprised as you were."

Christine settled comfortably onto the chaise near his mahogany writing desk and absently perused the shelves of unusual titles that made up Erik's library. "I don't even think the management knew. Lord d'Arcy interrupted our rehearsal and just…took it upon himself to begin auditions then and there." She returned her anxious gaze to Erik. "Is it true he's also insisted upon directing it himself?"

Erik straightened the papers and set them aside. "Yes, that I do know. Unfortunately. He is the simplest minded composer I have encountered in many years." He leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Possibly ever."

"But the opera, Erik… The pieces I have heard… It's beautiful."

"Too beautiful," he nodded. "I would wager anything he paid some poor starving genius quite a sum for it." He stood, and before Christine could respond, he added thoughtfully, "Or did away with him."

"Erik!" she gasped, astounded that he would say such a thing.

He laughed softly. "D'Arcy did not write it, Christine. Any fool who has so much as heard a note of his previous attempts would know that in a moment."

"But all of Paris will think he wrote it when it opens here…"

"A pity," he sighed, and he took the book he sought from a shelf.

She watched him for a few moments as he flipped through its pages before she spoke again. "He approached me… He waited until I was alone."

Erik set the book down on the desk and turned back to face her. "Again?"

She nodded and without thinking, pulled a small round cushion into her lap. "He makes me nervous. This is the third time…"

"Fourth," he corrected her.

"Yes…" Her fingers traced the curve of the pillow.

"What was it this time? More poorly veiled solicitations?"

"No… Well, first he…complimented me. He said that after hearing me sing for him today, he could imagine no other as the leading lady in his opera… He said that I… That I had a voice that could set a man on fire, and if I was not able to display on the stage the…delicious passion his opera needed, he did not think any woman could."

Erik's tone was dry yet contemplative, "I don't know whether to thank him or to threaten him." He returned to his seat and scanned the page of the book he'd found.

Christine smiled, but only for a moment before she recalled the rest of the conversation. "But then he said that my…technique could use some work."

Erik turned a page and answered sharply without looking up, "Your technique is perfect."

"He said that…if I would accept the role, it would be his pleasure to…coach me privately."

The next page Erik turned tore right out of the book's binding. His eyes snapped up to hers. "If he so much as goes near your voice, much less the rest of you privately, I'll kill him."

Christine's expression was uncertain, as she did not know whether to smile at the warmth of Erik's overprotective outburst or to shrink back at the very real lethal look in his eyes.

"Not only does he lack talent, Christine, he is simply an imbecile. One session with him, private or not, would surely destroy something vital in the perfect voice I have given you."

She nodded quickly. "I told him I that already have a voice teacher."

"I should hope so."

"He asked who you were…"

"And I should hope you told him that it is none of his business."

She nodded again and hugged the little round pillow to her breast.

Erik looked back at his book and for a moment seemed confused by the torn page in his hand. "As it is," he began in a more thoughtful tone. "I doubt giving you voice lessons is what he actually intends to do with you in private at all. It is not the virtue of your flawless voice that would be in certain danger."

She shuddered and rested her chin on the top edge of the cushion. "It's the way he looks at me… Even when he knows I can see him watching me. And I am not the only one he looks at that way…But why do I feel like I am the only one who does not like it? He even said he could convince the management to increase my salary and give me a larger dressing room. I know other women would jump at the offer, but he makes me feel like he trying to purchase me."

Erik's hand struck the table and he laughed out loud. "If you want a larger salary, Christine, I am the one you ought to ask! I am sorry, though, but your dressing room is staying exactly where it is."

His uninhibited amusement brought a frown to Christine's face. "I don't think it's funny, Erik. He becomes bolder every time. And he always waits until I am alone."

Erik relocated himself to sit at her side on the chaise and he gently pulled the pillow from her arms. "What do you want me to do, my dear? Shall I do away with him?"

She scowled and turned from him. "Please… Must you say things like that?"

He reached across and took her by the wrist to bring her back to face him. "I could write him a letter."

She jerked her wrist from his gentle grasp and stood abruptly. "Obviously you are not concerned!"

He leaned back, resting an elbow against the top of the chaise and let his eyes take their time to reach her face as he looked up at her. When he met her eyes, his were alert with clear assurance. "I do not need to be concerned," he seemed to conclude. "He has only continued to proposition you because, crafty woman that you are, you do not directly refuse him as I know you would be fully capable of doing should you decide to. Hardly a devoted suitor-if you were perhaps but a bit crueler to him, he would not waste another moment on you before he turned to pursue the next susceptible young thing that caught his eye, and instead make her his leading lady. It is only your inability to sever him, my little opportunist, that keeps him in tow. Such an indifferent solicitor is simply not worth my effort. I have more important matters with which to concern myself. Especially when in regards to you, my dear." He paused merely for the sake of gazing at her for a few silent moments more, and then he stood again. "But speaking of other matters, I do not have much time before I must be going."

She silently considered what he had said with more than a hint of disdain for his frankness, and merely watched him leave the room for a stubborn minute before she surrendered her affronted feelings and followed him. "You are going somewhere? But aren't you going to be there tonight?"

"No, once again, there is much more important business that requires my presence than attending some party in his honor."

"Some party?" She stopped, again put off by his condescension. "The whole company will be there along with all the contributing patrons!"

"By all means, do not think to let my absence prevent you from going, Christine."

It was not as if she had a choice. "I am expected to make an appearance."

He went to her and absently waved away a strand of hair that had fallen over her frustrated features. "Well then, tell everybody I say hello."

Christine was not in the least amused. "What if he finds me alone again tonight, Erik?"

"Alone?" Erik stepped back, immediately somber. "I am quite certain your adhesive Vicomte de Chagny will see to it that you are not left alone for a moment."

She glanced away from him, and though she tried to maintain her defensive tone, her voice was much softer. "At least he will be there."

He turned from her and went into the parlor. "Enjoy yourself with him then, Christine. Enjoy the party. Have a ball."

She winced, at once regretting the blatant jealousy she had purposefully provoked. She did not want to go to the party at all, adoring vicomte or no. She again followed Erik into the room, but lingered by the door as she watched him buckle the straps of a strangely shaped black leather satchel.

"And," he continued to speak as if he had never paused. "If your young gentleman is even half the aristocrat he was born to be, he will gallantly protect your honor from all lecherous or otherwise sinister opera composers. Even if he is pathetically inept in all other areas."

Christine was torn between the apologetic sentiment for having reminded Erik of his rival for her affection, and the offence she took at his comments. "I wish you would not speak of him that way, Erik. He is my friend."

Erik gave leather strap a brutal final tug. "Of course he is."

She did not know what to say then and remained in the doorway, silent with downcast eyes until she realized he had approached her and was simply standing before her, waiting. She looked up to him with sudden expectation.

But he only gestured for her to step aside and said flatly, "Excuse me."

Her eyes lingered on his for an immobile moment, and then she moved obediently out of his way. She watched him pass back again into the hall.

"When are you returning?" she called after him softly.

"In the morning." His voice floated back to her as if he had only gone a few steps, not disappeared all the way into the next room. "I will come for you early in the evening. You will stay here tomorrow night."

She leaned against the frame of the door, sighing inaudibly. "And now?"

He reappeared, dressed to go and handed her her own cloak. "Now, my dear, I do believe you have a party to prepare for."

She wrapped the cloak about her shoulders and followed him outside to the boat.


	2. Lord d'Arcy is Vile

Christine chose a gown of black silk to wear to the party. It was her form of protest. Although the bodice was a bit too low-cut and the gathered skirts hugged her hips a little too tightly to make the dress appropriate for a funeral, it certainly did not fit into the category of celebratory attire. Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny, however despite her efforts to appear grave, all but gaped at her when she made her first appearance to meet him in the foyer of the Opera, and then further complimented her beauty with lavish phrases of poetic flattery.

That had been hours ago, and as Erik predicted, the young man had since not left her side for so much as a moment. Christine always enjoyed Raoul's company and she could have wished for no more desirable an escort to this event, but she had long since grown weary of the evening of constant effort to completely avoid the guest of honor in the throng of merrymakers who had gradually become merrier as the night and the champagne wore on.

The effort had actually been successful so far for the entire evening, and therefore Raoul was beginning to become suspicious of the continual coincidence of evasions Christine cunningly created. As he stood with her on his arm now in one of the ballrooms, and they sipped uncounted glasses of champagne together while watching the dancers and enjoying obscurity among the crowd, he finally asked her forthright, more suggestively than was normally in his nature:

"When do I get the chance to meet this magnificent Lord d'Arcy for myself? I have been at his party for hours and have not so much as even seen him, much less been properly introduced."

Christine swallowed the last of the effervescent liquid in her glass too quickly, caught off guard by the question, and coughed slightly. She unhooked her arm from Raoul's to accept the handkerchief he offered her and dabbed at her lips. She then took her time to hand the empty glass to a waiter before she met Raoul's eyes, which were still expectant for an answer.

She offered him nothing at first, but then cleared her throat delicately and glanced about the room. Her eyes immediately found the man they regrettably sought across the floor, on the other side of the dancers, having what looked like an uproarious conversation with three young ladies whose brilliant giggles could be heard over the music from even where Christine stood.

She took Raoul's arm again with both of her hands and gestured with a tilt of her head for him to follow her gaze. "He is right over there."

"Aha!" Raoul smiled victoriously and left his own empty glass on a passing tray. "Then you will introduce us." He stepped away from the wall, bringing her with him.

"No!" she gasped, planting her feet firmly before he could take her any further. "I mean…I would really rather not."

He removed his arm from her grasp and turned to face her after another backwards glance at his first impression of Lord d'Arcy. "Why not?"

She pressed her lips together, her eyes darkening as they took in the image of one of d'Arcy's fleshy hands creeping around the bare shoulders of one of those girls while his other twisted one end of his rusty colored moustache. "I am avoiding him when I can."

"I have noticed. Despite how eager you know I am to meet him… Christine, all I want is an introduction."

She shook her head. "No, you don't. He is a vile man."

Raoul laughed at the adorableness of her severity and took her by the elbow, turning about to watch the scene again. "Vile? He looks most popular."

Christine shuddered and made herself look away. "With the pretty young women, I suppose."

Raoul glanced down at her, still confused, but now slightly alarmed. "Christine, has he offended you?"

She sighed softly and shook her head a little, uncertain how to explain. "He offered me the lead in his opera…"

"Wonderful!"

"At a price."

"A price?" he asked, not quite sure if she could actually mean what he thought she might.

But then as he studied her, he could suddenly so easily read in her darting eyes, that primal fear that only a woman could understand from a man.

Raoul froze, and then looked back slowly, seeing the composer in an entirely blacker light. "What did you tell him?" he asked, without glancing back to her, his voice sharp and low.

She looked back up to his face, hesitant now. "I…I did not know what to tell him. I did not say anything at all either way at the time. He just seemed to assume that I would agree. And that is…" She shuddered a little again. "I am avoiding him."

She could see the muscles in Raoul's jaw clench as his eyes narrowed in the direction of d'Arcy's group. And then she was startled as, without another word, he suddenly broke away from her and moved to go straight across the dance floor.

She grabbed him by the arm, stopping him before he got far enough to disrupt the dancers. "What are you doing?"

He did not pull away from her, but kept his eyes trained firmly on his target. "I am going to challenge him."

She tugged at his arm in attempt to return him to their previous location. "Raoul, don't be ridiculous!"

"How dare he! I'll kill him!"

"Raoul, please!" She tugged forcefully, attempting to avoid more surprised looks from the people nearby.

He looked back down at her finally, and after a wrought moment of desperate eye contact, he seemed to slightly relax.

"Confrontation will not solve anything." She continued to hold on to his arm, just in case.

"Neither will avoiding it."

"I know," she sighed. "But…You have to understand how things work at the Opera."

"The politics here are not beyond me, Christine," he frowned. "But I absolutely refuse to stand for anybody, magnificent new composer or not, to put you in a compromising situation. If he even attempts to lay a finger on you—"

"I know, Raoul," she cut him off and tentatively released his arm. "And I… I thank you, but I will find a way to deal with it on my own."

"A part in an opera is not worth…" He looked upon d'Arcy with unmasked disgust. "That." He barely prevented himself from moving forward again as he saw a group of gentlemen extract d'Arcy from the circle of women and lead him toward the large double doors.

Christine declined a tray of champagne glasses offered by a waiter, and then she took one of Raoul's hands, lightly resting her head against his shoulder. "I know… And I suppose this will be one opera you should not bother to come seeing for my sake."

Raoul exhaled slowly and then turned his face to hers, reaching up with his free hand to stroke the curve of her cheek with white gloved fingertips. "Come seeing?" he asked gently, a soft smile touching his lips.

She blinked, confused for a moment, then corrected herself, "Coming to see. Champagne makes me say the strangest things."

"That wasn't so strange." He tilted her face towards his, his eyes seeming now to dance with the waltz in the air. "But you see, Christine? This is just why I mean you should leave all this Opera business behind and marry me."

She gasped and pulled away from him, laughing with sudden brightness. She did not need to remind Raoul of her devotion to her art and to Erik, whom she could never abandon for the normal life of a wife, Raoul's or not. Raoul had long understood her situation, and though his jealousy was never completely submersed, he managed to content himself with enjoying what he could of Christine for now; however, small yet serious comments like his now never failed to emerge whenever given the opportunity.

Her hair tossed with a shake of her head, and she dismissed his words with practiced ease. "I think you, monsieur, have had too much champagne!"

But her laughter only brightened his smile and he beckoned over another waiter. "And I think you have not had enough." He handed her a fresh glass and took one for himself. "What shall we toast, Christine?"

She paused, giving the idea a moment's thought, and then met his eyes with a smile of her own. "Virtue?"

He laughed and shook his head. "Virtue it is then, as the lady desires. To virtue."

And shortly after the lovely clink of crystal, each of them was another glass of champagne worse for the night.

The colors of gowns blurred with the black of tuxedoes as Christine and Raoul continued to content themselves without participating in the dance. And each of them had long since lost track of time when their private whispers were suddenly interrupted by the alcohol-enhanced giggles of the same three young ladies that had only earlier been entertaining the infamous Lord d'Arcy.

"Oh, Christine Daaé, my dear, I see you've brought your favorite escort to yet another of our company bashes!"

"Oh, yes, but must you keep him pulled away all night in the corner as if you didn't want to share him with the rest of us?"

"Christine Daaé, you are so selfish! Some of us don't even have escorts, much less vicomtes!"

Raoul only laughed pleasantly, and Christine blushed with a mixture of embarrassment and exasperation.

"My dear ladies," he began with a smug smile, "I would rather spend the entire evening with Mademoiselle Daaé alone in a dark corner than be without her amid the largest, brightest crowd."

One of them hiccupped with laughter, "I am certain he would!" And then was immediately jabbed by both the others.

The girls, who Christine knew from the singers' ensemble, had never changed the too friendly manner in which they had treated her from when she too had been among their ranks in supporting roles.

"Have you heard anything from the auditions today?" one of them asked her eagerly.

She shook her head guardedly, "No… Nothing definite, that is."

Meanwhile another one of them whispered too loudly to Raoul, "Someone was looking for you. You know, that black-eyed ballerina who follows la Sorelli around like a terrier? What is her name?" She burst into giggles, unable to remember.

"Have you heard anything?" Christine asked her questioner curiously, but glanced over to Raoul as she caught part of the girl's whisper.

"Yes, actually, we have heard something!" she beamed.

Christine's attention immediately returned to the one before her. She wondered if what they had heard had been part of that too intimate group conversation they had witnessed earlier.

"All three of us are getting featured parts!" she chirped before Christine had even had the chance to ask.

"And a salary increase for extra rehearsals!" the second one added, while the third meanwhile gave Raoul a knowing smirk.

Christine immediately turned away in revulsion, but none of them seemed to notice as one at once pulled the other two away to share the news with the next friend they happened to see.

Part of Christine wondered if she should feel happy for them. None of them had managed to work their way up to featured roles before, and this would be an exciting opportunity for them… But she just could not dismiss the abhorrent feeling that not one of them had earned the promotion on the merit of their singing.

She was drawn from her upsetting thoughts by the pleasant smell of champagne as she realized Raoul was holding another crystal glass under her nose, waiting for her to accept it. She lifted her eyes to his fair and handsome features, which were beset with the most endearing expression of understanding. She took the glass, holding its stem carefully between her loose fingertips.

"To respect?" he offered.

She could not help but smile then, and she happily tipped her glass to his.

Afterwards, they danced. He admitted it was his excuse to hold her in his arms, but at this late hour, she did not care. They laughed together as the tightly swirled material of the skirts of her dress caused her to miss many a step, and danced carelessly, as if nobody was watching. And indeed, it was unlikely that anybody was watching, for most of the party's guests were even more inebriated by now than the charming young vicomte and his lovely little diva.

When the waltz had finished, they remained standing together on the dance floor, their heads still spinning long after their bodies had ceased to twirl. But the slick satin material of Christine's long, black glove caused her hand to slip from Raoul's shoulder as her strength to hold it there waned. He caught it before it fell to her side and graciously pressed a kiss to its back.

But then she swayed on her feet and he had to catch the rest of her before she fell completely. "Christine! Are you all right?"

She pressed a hand to her forehead, and squeezed her eyes shut, unable to focus on his face. "Yes, I just… I feel so faint all of a sudden… I… No… I need to sit down."

He held her aloft firmly and guided her to a chair near a refreshment table at the wall. "It's just the champagne," he said gently. "I am almost seeing two of you, myself." He pressed her hand as she sat down. "Perhaps it was not so wise to dance, after all."

"No…" She clutched the thin arms of the chair, stray strands of her hair falling into her face as she leaned over. "I feel ill…" And then she almost laughed at her own misfortune, but could not quite manage the sound.

"You just need some water." He straightened and glanced to the table, but saw at once that the water pitchers were empty. "Just stay right here," he offered. "I shall fetch you some."

She nodded, attempting to breathe away the nauseating dizziness that now overwhelmed her, and she could not even look up to him as he left her side for the first time that evening, on a mission to find her a glass of water.


	3. Lord d'Arcy is Here

 

It seemed to take forever for Raoul to return. Christine's nausea eventually passed, and she was taken over by a completely numbed feeling that transformed absolutely everything into softness beneath her touch. The material of her dress was too supple, the texture of the skin of her face felt spongy, and she felt that if she only had the strength to press down a little harder, she would be able to push right through the arm of her chair. And she felt hot, too hot; it was sweltering in this crowded room and she wished Raoul would hurry so that he might then take her someplace cooler. She used the handkerchief he had given her earlier to dab at her temples, but it felt rough and almost painful against the fluff that her face had become.

There was also a hollow buzzing feeling in her head, and she could not figure out whether it was in her nose or her ears, and was in the process of trying to pin down its location so she could focus on somehow eliminating it, when she became aware that someone had approached her.

She looked up, hoping to greet her friend's now long-awaited return, but was met only with the stunning presence of the man she had been attempting to avoid all night. In her state of loosened self-control, politeness could not keep a disappointed frown from her face.

But he did not seem to pay it a moment's attention. "Good evening, Miss Daaé."

She had almost forgotten how grating she could not help finding his affected accent that mixed British and French so cacophonously. She refused to meet his eyes and pointedly remained sitting.

"Good evening, monsieur… I am waiting for someone."

"I have noticed you sitting over here alone, waiting, as you say, ever since I stepped in the door."

She resisted a shudder at the idea of him watching her without her knowing it. But just how long had she been waiting now? "He is coming… He probably just had trouble finding… He will be back at any moment."

Lord d'Arcy nodded, and if she had looked at him, she would have seen the toothy smile he offered. "I am glad for that. I do hate to see a lady alone. But as I was observing you from right over there, I could not help getting the notion that you were desperately in need of a glass of water."

Christine looked up to him quickly.

"And far be it from me," he continued, "to ever ignore the plight of a lady in need."

And then he lifted his hand, which Christine had not bothered to notice before, and handed her a glass, half filled with still water.

She accepted it but looked up to him hesitantly. She wanted to ask how he knew, but it occurred to her that he had surely seen many a woman under the negative influence of champagne before. She said nothing of thanks and looked down to the water. All she could wonder was what price he might ask in return for the gesture, but her tongue yearned for it and her dry throat ached for its coolness. So she lifted it to her lips and swallowed quickly.

At once she choked and tried to spit it out, but it was too late. "This is not water!" she gasped amid the coughing that seized her.

He snatched the glass from her in alarm and sniffed its contents. "Damn it all, you're right!"

She bent over in her seat, gripping her sides in attempt to control her sputtering.

He dropped the glass on the table. "You must forgive me, Miss Daaé." He chuckled as if no harm had been done. "I am afraid I have had one too many myself. Hmm. I must have simply taken the wrong glass."

She shook her head, breathing heavily, and trying to see through the blurring shock of the clear alcohol that still burned like fire down her throat and into her stomach. Oh, where was Raoul? She needed water now more than ever!

She felt one of d'Arcy's hands on her shoulder then, and she pulled immediately away, looking up to him, startled into breathing correctly.

He studied her face with that same smile. "There now. Once it goes down, it's not so bad, is it?"

She stood abruptly, but had to grab hold of the chair to keep herself up.

He went to check the water pitchers on the table. "There's none left here." He looked back at her. "But I know just where to get you some."

She shook her head quickly and then immediately regretted it, as she could not straighten it again. "No thank you."

He chuckled. "Oh, I see, you do not trust me. I assure you, Miss Daaé, I will not make the same mistake twice."

"No," she managed between fresh coughs. "Thank you."

"It really is no trouble. It is just around the corner out those doors there. I say, why don't you just come along and observe. You can watch me pour it into a glass for you myself, and see exactly where it comes from." His pale green eyes twinkled with what could have been amusement or perhaps too much of the spirits.

The coughing became worse again, and Christine could not even manage an answer this time. How she needed water! She thought of just going to find it herself, but as she stepped forward, she misjudged the distance the confining skirts of her gown allowed her and she stumbled on her feet.

He took her by the arm then. "That's right, it's right this way." And he led her to the doors, into the hall, and around the corner.

She recognized the room they entered as one of the reception rooms even though all the furniture had been rearranged and several long, skirted tables had been set up down its center. The tables were empty of food and drink, but nonetheless covered in clean bowls, platters, tureens, and serving utensils.

He took his arm from hers and left her side to approach the table. The place where his elbow had pressed into her dress felt wet and sticky now. And she realized that she felt clammy all over and much too warm as her dress clung uncomfortably to her glistening skin. With nothing to support her, she swayed slightly before putting a hand against the mirror that covered wall above the chair rail on the door side of the room.

"I believe the buffet was originally intended to be held here," he said as he moved down the length of a table, glancing into the silver bowls that sparkled in the flickering lights of the gas lamps. "But they moved it into a larger room with larger platters at the last minute. Quite a turn out for my little soirée, wouldn't you say? Most of them have gone now, though."

His voice sounded too far away to Christine, and it echoed annoyingly about her mind too long before dissipating. As she waited, she watched her own reflection in the yellowed mirror, surprised and almost disgusted by the ruddiness of her own features. But she made sure to keep an eye on his reflection as well.

"Eureka!" he laughed. "I have hit the jackpot!"

She turned back to him as quickly as she could manage and saw that he had found a large bowl filled with long melting ice.

"Saved by the miracle of shrimp once again," he grinned, foolishly for someone his age.

She made her way over to the table, supporting herself on furniture where she could, and looked down into the bowl that had never had the chance to hold any shrimp. She had to admit there was absolutely nothing suspicious about the crystal fresh water that mingled there among shrunken ice pieces. She could already taste its refreshing clear coldness…

He took a cup from the opposite table and dipped it by its handle into the ice water and held it ceremoniously out to Christine. "As promised, mademoiselle."

She took it and turned from him, drinking it as quickly as she could. She did not think she had ever tasted anything so revitalizing as long as she had lived!

But as she finished, she realized he was standing directly behind her, so close that she distinctly felt pressure against the padded material of the gathered bustle of her skirt. And then his hand reached around her and took the cup from her to set it aside.

She stepped away quickly and spun about to face him.

He chuckled again, but softly this time, in the deep parts of his throat, "My, aren't you a feisty little thing. Just lovely, though. Exquisite."

She took another step back and glanced to the door. She did not remember closing that door.

He tilted his head to one side as he looked at her. "Just delicious, aren't you?" And then he approached her again. "If only you did not insist upon dressing yourself like a nun in a convent." He stopped at her side and traced a fleshy finger from the black material of the shoulder of her dress down its neckline. "Though I've never known a nun who would expose quite so much of her white bosom."

She turned away from him quickly, but he caught her by the elbow.

"Monsieur!" she gasped, as her eyes darted about the room, only to find their dim reflections in the mirror.

"Why don't you call me Ambrose?" he offered. "And I will call you Christine. Would you like that, Christine?"

She shook her head and pulled away from him, but stumbled again against her own skirts. "I do not feel well," she managed. "And I am waiting for someone. I must return…"

"Oh look!" he exclaimed, seeming to not have heard one word she had said. "There is a piano in here. How convenient."

She followed his gaze, confused, and saw that there was indeed a large, brown, grand piano in the opposite corner of the room.

"You said you would sing for me, didn't you? Why don't we have our first lesson right now."

Her mouth opened, but she did not know what to say. And he took her by the arm again to lead her to the piano. But with each step, he pulled her closer and closer against his side.

He leaned to her ear as he spoke, the foul alcohol on his breath stifling her. "You are quite a delicious creature. I could teach you a lot, Christine, you know that? And I mean a whole lot more than just singing."

She gasped, and with all her strength, wrenched away from him. But she stumbled again, and as she fell to the ground, her head came into sharp contact with the hard edge of the table. Pain shot through her entire body, and she collapsed into a crumpled heap. Moaning, she lifted a weak and shaky hand to her head, and her fingers sank into the warm, soft blood that oozed into her hair. Her hand fell then and she briefly saw thick red soak into her black glove before her eyes fell shut.

"My, oh my." His voice was distant, as if from another world, but his heavy, sticky hands were right there, around her waist, pulling her back up.

She could vaguely feel the slowness of the blood as it trailed down her hanging face, and she tried to open her eyes. If only she could open her eyes…

She thought he might have said something else then, but her ears were deafened by the searing pain in her head. Her vision swam between blurred images and grey fog. The last things her completely numbed senses recognized were the hard lip of the table pressing into her stomach as she was bent over it and the gust of cold air against the clammy flesh of her thighs as her clinging skirts seemed to tear so easily away. And then blackness claimed her.


	4. Lord d'Arcy is Dead

 

When Christine awoke, that was all that she could remember. Though she did not remember it all right away; in fact, as she awoke she was aware of nothing but the most torturously excruciating pain she had ever known. Her head felt as if it were being brutally crushed in on all sides, and her entire body was so weak that she could not even lift a hand to the pounding under her temples. What had happened…? Where was she…?

Then suddenly it all came back to her. The horrifying realization forced her eyes open, but her right eyelid was stiff and as she pushed herself up, she managed to wipe at it. Rough, red flakes of dried blood sprinkled off into her white palm. She stared at them and her breathing became erratically halted simultaneously as her hand began to shake as she also noticed that the skin of her chest above the neckline of her dress was smeared with stains of blood.

She pushed herself up completely, whimpering at the pain the effort caused her, and looked frantically about her surroundings. It took her a moment of blank confusion before she realized that the whole room was reflected in that giant mirror that covered an entire wall. She was in her own dressing room, lying on her own divan. The lights were on, her door was closed, and she had absolutely no idea how she had come to be there.

She squeezed her eyes shut again against the agonizing ache and forced herself to stand, her fingers digging into the quilted fabric for support. She willed her feet to take a step to turn around to face the mirror, but as she moved, something did not feel right about her skirts. She opened her eyes again to look down and at once realized that the black silk of her skirts along with her white petticoats were haplessly torn, and hung about her legs in shapeless tatter. She lifted them gently, whimpering again, and then realized that though it was invisible to the eye, the black fabric was all over stiffened with dried blood. Very slowly, she ran her hands up the front of her dress, feeling where the silk was smooth and where it became coarse and abrasive under her touch all the way up to the top of her bodice. She was covered in it.

But as she looked down at her hands and arms, she realized her pale skin there was soft and unstained. How was that possible? If she had hit her head and touched that blood enough to have it spread all over her dress, how could her hands be so clean?

She lifted her head finally to face herself in the mirror. Choking on a gasp, she fell back against the divan. The golden hair that she had done up so carefully was completely disheveled and half was browned with blood. She could not even see the wound that she felt throbbing against her scalp as matted hair clung, pasted to the torn flesh from which a mapwork of dried browning rivers streamed across her eyelid, down her cheek, and under her chin to continue on all the way down between her breasts. But most startling of all, halfway across the neckline of her dress and onto the trembling flesh of her chest, the smear of blood took the clear shape of a handprint. She lifted her own hand to it and it was shaking almost too much now to press it against the shape. But as she did, eyes locked on the gruesome reflection in the mirror, the shape dwarfed her own small hand, and she understood that the print could not be her own.

Her weak limbs could no longer hold her even with the support of the divan, and as she collapsed back into it, it felt as if she floated there to rest again upon its softness as the pounding in her head exploded once more into unconsciousness…And the only last thought she could grasp was that if she had bled this much from her head, how, oh how could she ever still be alive?

There was no way she could have known how long she had slept, but she felt none the more rested when she was awoken by the shouts and clamor of her door being forced open. When she looked up, she saw Raoul, dressed differently than she remembered, gaping at her with horrified shock from the doorway.

But his paralysis lasted only a moment and at once he was at her side, immediately followed into the room by two uniformed policemen.

"Christine!" he gasped. He attempted to take her in his arms, but drew back immediately as she moaned in pain at his touch.

He turned back to the policemen and ordered, half terrified, "Get the doctor!"

One of them dashed from the room while the other moved back only as far as the hall.

"Raoul…" Christine managed, her trembling fingers taking hold of the lapel of his jacket where he bent over her.

"Oh, thank god, Christine!" he exclaimed, so grateful to only hear her speak.

She tried to focus on his face, but the lights were too bright. "Where am I?" she breathed.

He lifted a hand to brush the hair from the wound on her head, but then thought better of it and decided to wait to let the doctor do that. Instead, he took her hand, clasping it to his chest. "In your dressing room…"

She tried to turn her head, but bit back a gasp at the pain that immediately assaulted her temples. "Yes…" she whispered. "Someone brought me here…"

"Who?" he asked so loudly and quickly that it made her cringe and turn away.

He stroked her hand gently and asked again, much more softly, "Who?"

"I… I don't know…"

There was a commotion in the hallway that caught both their attentions then as the remaining policeman had to aggressively request that a gathering crowd disperse.

Raoul turned back to Christine, leaning closer to her and whispering fearfully, "Christine, what happened to you?"

She tried again with a bit more success to focus on him. "I hit my head… I don't know… I fell and I… I hit my head… I'm bleeding…"

Raoul stroked her hand more fervently, "It's all right, Christine… The doctor is coming."

The hubbub in the hall had begun to escalate into an uproar.

"Raoul," she whimpered. "What is going on?"

He hesitated only a moment before answering, "Lord d'Arcy is dead."

Her eyes widened impossibly. "Dead!" she gasped.

He softened his voice even more. "Yes…Murdered."

She groaned, tears flooding her eyes and she turned away from him as he continued to speak.

"He was stabbed to death, Christine… In one of the reception rooms on the main level."

"No…" she moaned.

Raoul glanced back at the door as he heard the police shouting orders to the crowd to make way for the doctor.

He moved around Christine again to face her quickly in the time he had left, begging desperately, "Christine, please tell me what happened…"

"I don't remember… He took me… He… I hit my head…"

"Christine!" He grasped her by the shoulders more roughly than he ever would have done if he had had more time. "What did he do to you?"

She closed her eyes, unable to answer, unable to remember, and then the doctor entered the room with a police escort.

"Close that door," he instructed the officer in the hall, and then turned to Raoul, "And you! What in God's name are you doing?"

Raoul released Christine and drew back. "What took so long?"

The doctor pulled a stool next to Christine's resting place and turned her face to him, causing her to wince. He examined each of her eyes and then went straight to the wound under her hair.

"Make yourself useful," he gestured at Raoul, "and bring me some clean water and some towels?"

"No!" Christine's hand shot up, grasping Raoul's. "Don't go!"

The doctor turned and made the same request of one of the policemen.

"I won't go anywhere, Christine." Raoul clasped her hand, kissing her fingers gently.

"So this is the infamous Christine?" the doctor asked as he resumed his task, having heard Raoul's words.

Christine's eyes shifted to him. "What…?"

Raoul shot the old man a look. "Have some decency."

"What is it?" Christine asked, becoming frightened.

"They've told you Lord Ambrose d'Arcy has been murdered haven't they?"

"Yes," Raoul answered for her, "She knows."

"But did they tell you what was written on the wall, on the mirror, in the man's own blood above his slaughtered body?"

Raoul turned abruptly on the doctor as Christine paled. "Can't you see you're upsetting her?"

"No…" Christine squeezed Raoul's hand that she refused to release. "Tell me…"

The doctor looked to Raoul as he dampened Christine's matted hair with the water that had been delivered.

Raoul sighed and knelt to her, meeting her eyes.

"What was written on the wall?" she asked again, her small, shaking voice sounding like the frightened whisper of a child.

The movement of water and the distant sounds of the crowd in the hall beyond the closed door pounded against her suffering ears for a long moment of hesitation before he finally answered:

"For Christine."


	5. Questions Without Answers

 

The tall clock against the far wall of the anteroom outside the Opera's offices was one minute away from striking eleven, and Christine watched it from her seat with as much fear as she would have likely watched an approaching sinister stranger in a dark and deserted street. Her fingertips fluttered over the soft bandage that had been affixed to her temple by the doctor, but she did not dare touch it for the pain that still throbbed beneath it. He had given her something for it, but it had only just begun to take effect and she knew her headache would come shredding back again the moment the chimes commenced.

"Spend the day in bed," the man had told her. But only a quarter of an hour later, she had received the police summons to appear at once in the room they had appropriated to host their investigation. Her maid, who having been sent from home in concern and had managed to force her way through the throng outside her dressing room door, had helped Christine wash and dress before she was escorted to where she now waited in trembling anxiety. The dress she now wore was cream colored and left her cold. And in far too much pain for combs or pins, her hair had only been tied back loosely to keep it from sticking to the adhesive around her injury, and thanks to it, the headache had finally begun to fade.

Eleven chimes later, however, she could not suppress a moan.

"What is it, mademoiselle?" The young officer leaning against the door opposite straightened with concern.

She withdrew her hand from her eyelids. "Will it be much longer?" she asked softly.

"I am terribly sorry, mademoiselle," was his only reply.

Raoul had been asked away from her room just before her maid's arrival by someone she had been too unfocused to recognize. She had hoped he would return before she was required to leave, but was disappointed when the next knock at her door had only been another policeman. How she wished he could be with her now, how she needed him. She had instructed her maid to wait in her dressing room for the sole purpose of telling him at once where she had gone when he returned.

"Another murder," sighed the officer who watched over her now. "Could make a man begin to believe in ridiculous rumors after all."

"Who?" asked Christine as she made herself look to him again.

"Nothing." He shook his head and then stepped quickly away from the door as it opened behind him. A man emerged and informed them that the Police Commissary was ready to see her.

Christine was led into the room and very politely offered a chair across the desk from his seat. He stood quickly and made her a little bow, the sympathy evident upon every part of his expression.

"Ah, Mademoiselle Daaé," he began. "I do not believe we have met, though I myself am familiar with you."

"You are?" she asked timidly as she settled cautiously into the cushioned chair.

"I am Inspector Mifroid." He resumed his seat. "It is my business to be familiar with all that is involved in, amongst others of course, the cases of criminal activity at the fine establishment of the Opera. And I am certain I am not the only one who regrets to realize that your name has appeared perhaps more often than any other among many of them lately."

She wrung her hands about each other slowly where they were hidden under the edge of the table and glanced to the two other policemen that stood attentively behind her in the room. "What do you mean?" she asked Mifroid.

"We will come to that shortly," he said as he flipped open a brown folder on the desk before him. "Or perhaps at a later time. I understand you have been injured and would not think of overtaxing you beyond what is necessary for the moment. In order to hasten your return to recovery, I hope you do not mind if I am blunt in proceeding with the questioning. We have spent much of this morning already speaking with your colleagues."

She lifted her eyes to look across to him again. "Questioning?"

He nodded and tapped a pen against the side of his mouth before, with no more ceremony, beginning, "It appears you were the last person seen with the victim, the Lord Amrbose d'Arcy, when he was alive. The two of you left the great crush room downstairs in each others' company alone at approximately two-thirty this morning. This was witnessed on more than one account. I will need you right now to tell me everything that occurred after that time."

"I…" Christine shook her head slowly, pressing a very unsteady hand against the edges of her bandage. "Monsieur Mifroid, I feel very unwell and most of my memories of last night are beyond my grasp…"

"You must _try,_ mademoiselle. After all, it was your name which was written upon the wall."

She winced and attempted to fight back the frightened tears that pinched the corners of her eyes. "I remember," she began even more softly after a moment, "I remember going into the hall with him… And into another room. I remember it was empty. You must understand I was feeling ill and faint."

He nodded again with another sympathetic frown and waved a hand to one of the men. "Tell the secretary to bring the lady a glass of water. Do go on, mademoiselle."

"A glass of water!" She looked up again too quickly for her headache to bear. "It was why we went. I remember as much now. That was all there was to it…"

"You went into the hall to another room for a glass of water," he said calmly. "Where was this other room?"

"We did not walk far. There were empty buffet tables…"

"Ah," he made a note in his folder. "And then what happened?"

"We were alone." She took to slowly wringing her hands again. "He…he took me by the arm and would not let me go." Squeezing her eyes shut, she wanted to recall the memory as desperately as she wanted to black it out eternally. "I know I fought with him… I know I got away from him because I tripped and I hit my head on…on something… I…"

"Yes, yes," he interjected kindly and reached across the desk to hand her a handkerchief.

She took her time to wipe at her eyes before she could continue. "He would not let me go. I felt his hands on me… He tore my dress…He…" She clutched at the creamy material over her heart.

Mifroid's frown twisted into a frustrated grimace. He put down his pen to wave in the secretary who had arrived with the water, and then waited until he was gone again before pressing Christine once more. "I understand this is a very upsetting and difficult line of questioning for a young lady such as yourself to answer, mademoiselle. But the law begs to know every detail. You must finish your tale as precisely as you can."

"I can't remember!" she gasped.

"Did the victim abuse you?"

"The victim!" She twisted the glass she had been given between her hands and shook her throbbing head in despair.

"Mademoiselle Daaé, did Lord Ambrose d'Arcy have his way with you?"

She shook her head more violently. "I remember nothing… I… I…" She gasped for breath. "But…no… It could not be. Could it?" She looked up at him again through her tears, attempting to regain some measure of calmness. "He could not have. No."

"But it was his intention?"

"Yes," she answered with incredibly soft clarity.

"Ah, so you found yourself alone with him, feeling unwell and faint, hit your head, and fell victim to his intention. What happened then?"

"I remember nothing after. But when I awoke this morning, it was only my head that suffered."

"And you awoke in your dressing room? How did you come to be there?"

"I don't remember. Someone brought me there. The blood…it…my dress…"

"Where is the clothing you were wearing?"

"It is there still."

He nodded. "We will be needing it at once. Mademoiselle Daaé, I need you now to try very hard to tell me who it was that conveyed you to your dressing room."

She could only shake her head, her fearful eyes wide.

Mifroid put his pen down again and folded his hands on the desktop, leaning over it toward her. "The person who helped you, mademoiselle, even if he or she is responsible for the crime, is your savior from what could have been a very deplorable circumstance, don't you believe?"

"I…"

"Perhaps this person," he continued, "was merely passing by and witnessed your struggle and took it upon himself to rescue a damsel in distress. You would like to thank him wouldn't you? I imagine we all would!"

"I cannot remember…"

"You do not need to protect him if it was an act of defense. The law offers protection enough in such cases."

She only shook her head again and set the untouched water back upon the desk. "Monsieur, if I could tell you…"

He sighed and sat back against his chair. "Of course, mademoiselle." He took up his pen again and began to write, saying as he did, "Is there anyone you know, or can think of, who would especially come to your aid? Or who also could potentially have been watching you with Lord d'Arcy, unbeknownst to you, and taken action when the situation turned as you have described?"

Christine's hands froze mid-wring.

Mifroid's eyes lifted from his notes expectantly.

"No…" She faltered and shook her head as she managed to speak again. "Anyone? Who would do such a thing?"

"A ghastly thing," he agreed, "but heroic, no?"

"No…"

"Not even," he leaned forward slightly more, "your acquaintance and last night's escort, Monsieur de Chagny, the younger?"

The handkerchief she held almost tore where she twisted it between her hands. "He couldn't!" she gasped.

Miroid only nodded and returned to note-writing. "So you would say that there was no one at all?" When she gave no verbal response, he continued, "And, as we have asked all those we have questioned this morning, would you say you knew of anyone with a particular vendetta against the victim?"

"I…" Christine tore her gaze from where it had drifted to the mirror on the side wall of the room. "I'm sorry?"

"Anyone who might have had a particular prior wish to do him harm."

She was quiet for several moments too long before saying, "No."

Mifroid stood. "Very well, mademoiselle. As I have said, our investigation will be requiring the clothing you were wearing last night as well as any other articles you had in your possession. You have said they are just down in your dressing room. If you would be so kind as to bring them back to us immediately, it should not take you longer than a few minutes."

She tried to regain control of her breathing and nodded quickly as she rose from the chair. "Yes, yes. I shall bring them at once."

He bowed to her politely again and gestured to the policeman by the door to let her go out. A third man moved to follow her, but he was stopped by a call from Mifroid:

"That is not necessary, Bernard. Let her go alone."

But Christine knew she did not imagine the abrupt gesture the commissary made to one of them as it was reflected in the mirror at her side just before she passed through the door. It closed sharply behind her, and she found herself alone again with the clock in the anteroom.


	6. Answers Without Questions

 

Christine did not think much of them at first, those small sounds—a footfall on the step behind the corner she turned, the creak of a door she closed only moments before—but by the time she reached her dressing room, she was convinced she was being followed. She pressed the door closed behind her and let shaking fingertips prod at her sore eyelids before she was grasped by the exceedingly concerned hands of her maid, Honorine.

"There were men here, looking about," the girl whispered breathlessly. "They didn't take anything, but they said they would return. The policeman at the door left with them."

Christine opened her eyes to look at her, but could not speak at first as her lips trembled. "Did he come back?" she finally managed to ask.

"Who?" Honorine frowned and busied herself with brushing lint that was not there from Christine's dress. "Oh! Do you mean the vicomte? No. Yes. I mean…"

"What? What do you mean?" Christine anxiously caught the maid's hand and moved further into the room, avoiding her distressed reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall.

Honorine seemed to shake all over for a moment as if in deliberate attempt to be rid of the tenseness that gripped her. "I mean I heard his voice in the hall," she said more quickly. "You know I can recognize him now by his voice alone. It was when those men were in here looking about with hats and gloves on. I let them in—it was right, wasn't it? I asked if they wished me to leave and they looked at me in this curious fashion—I could say it frightened me—I didn't like it. They said I could go or stay as I pleased and then watched me as if expecting me to do one more than the other, but I stayed. I didn't do wrong, did I?"

"What of the vicomte?" Christine shook her head and sank onto the divan without releasing Honorine's hand.

"Well, the matter is that I was not certain what I had better do, so I moved to the door as if I meant to leave and marked how they watched me—Oh, they made me so nervous! But at the door—I was standing over here—" She pulled from Christine and crossed the room. "And I heard Monsieur le Vicomte say—Well, I did not hear what he said, but I heard him say something, and speak to the man outside the door, the one in the uniform, and that man told him he could not enter, so I suppose it was that the vicomte asked permission to enter, for he was denied. Yes that must have been what he said. I know I heard something, and it was his voice that spoke it, and so I put my hand upon the latch—" Without pausing for breath, she grasped the handle— "And one of those men who was eyeing the edges of the mirror, there, caught me looking at his reflection and noted so pointedly that I intended to leave after all, that I at once stepped back and made no further move to intercept the vicomte, who I heard was going—more words exchanged between him and the policeman out there. So I stepped back at once, like this, and came over here to wait by the closet."

Christine took advantage of the girl's need to finally pause for a few deep breaths to ask, "What was their exchange? Did you hear nothing of what they said to each other?"

Honorine's face had grown quite red with her nerves as she panted. "Oh, no, I heard only that the vicomte was not to come inside. It was why I meant to open the door to tell him as you'd told me, but the way that man over there—" She gestured to no one. "—looked at me made me fear to do anything but stand right here, still as a toy soldier, and say and do nothing else until they had gone. When they left—they weren't here long at all, I don't suppose it could have been more than a few minutes, though it seemed like hours—I looked over everything to see what they had done, but it was all as it had been, and I have done nothing since then, and then you came and made me jump when you burst in here as if something were after you. I thought they might tell me to go or stay, but I suppose they were told by those others here earlier that you had instructed me to stay. I thought they were watching in the hall. Who was out there just now?"

Christine opened her eyes, for they had fallen shut again, and she shook her head, a hand kneading into the soft cover of the couch. "There was no one there," she said softly. "At least not that I _saw_."

The maid shuddered, then turned to the curtain that concealed the closet and lifted its edge to peek into its confines. Exhaling, she let it fall again and looked back to Christine. "Madame is still waiting," she said hesitantly. "Whatever shall I _tell_ her?"

Pressing her fingers to her lips, Christine sorted through clouded thoughts. She had not so much as thought of her Mama since yesterday and the realization panged her. "I… Oh… Please do not worry her. Tell her I am fine. Tell her I… Tell her I will be home later and that I… But no… She has not heard about any of it, has she?"

"None of it! Neither had I until I arrived here. She wondered when you did not come as you said you would and sent me to look after you—not because she had heard about _this_ or any of _that_. She was waiting for you, especially this morning because she has something, she said, to give to you. Oh, if she knew! Do you mean it not to be told?"

"No, I mean... But not yet." Christine shook her head. "What does she have to give to me?"

"I couldn't know. What will you do? She will want to know if you are coming."

"Tell her I will be." Christine was quiet for a moment, then continued softly, "But that I will not be staying. Tonight I am… Well, she will understand."

The girl nodded and moved to take her cloak from where she had earlier dropped it over the back of a chair amid the clamor, but she kept her concerned gaze upon her mistress. "You are certain you are all right? The doctor said…"

"I will be fine." Christine pushed herself to stand. "Please do not alarm her when you arrive home. Tell her I fell asleep here in this room… It is the truth. There is…too much. I will be there as soon as I can."

When Honorine was gone and she was alone again, Christine reminded herself why she had returned to—been sent to—this room in the first place. They earlier hung her ruined dress in the closet when she changed clothing, and so she took it out again. There were the petticoats too, smeared with red. Now that she could better focus on them, the streaks took on the distinct shape of fingers. She shuddered and put with the dress. What else was there? M. Mifroid seemed quite interested in having _everything_ she'd been wearing, but remembering details of the half-conscious insanity of the morning prior to her interview was more than Christine's exhausted mind could manage at the moment. Nevertheless, she tried to go about it quickly, gathering it all into a wardrobe bag. Suddenly she recalled the image of blood soaking into her long black glove as she pressed the torn skin at her temple while a golden room spun around her, distorted in a tinted mirror.

It took a few moments for an accompanying wave of nausea to pass before Christine could return to the closet to retrieve her gloves, but they were not there. A nervous frown tugged her tired face as she considered where else they might be. She checked her dressing table, and then summoned the fortitude to bend to look under the skirt of the divan. The gloves were nowhere to be found.

"Who…?" she whispered to herself. Lifting her head, she watched her reflection in the mirror. She could remember nothing of her return to this room last night, but Mifroid's suggestions planted terrified seeds in her imagination. _Someone_ had brought her back here, and without her gloves. It could have been anyone.

"Where are you?" she said aloud, to the mirror that rose high above her. She grappled to remember what Erik told her yesterday afternoon. That he was going on an errand of some sort? What was in that strangely-shaped satchel he packed? She did recall he said he would come for her tonight. Woe be to her soul if she ever let herself forget that! But when did he say he was returning to the Opera? Was he back already?

Was he…?

If so, he was paying no attention to her, for her mirror remained silent. Christine brushed a tear from the corner of her eye, and pulling up the wardrobe bag, she left her dressing room. She half expected to run into a policeman listening at her door, but the hall was empty, and there were no more mysterious sounds of pursuit as she made her way back the path she had come.

As she approached the end of a corridor on the main level, hushed voices alerted Christine to a cluster of people before they came into view. She could not bear to see nor be seen by anyone, and so she altered her path and instead went through the great crush room to take a roundabout route to the offices.

In the hall beyond it, she became aware of new voices with nothing hushed about them.

"For Christine?" said an older-sounding man.

She almost dropped the garment bag, and her gaze snapped to a door to one of the banquet rooms. It was open no more than an inch, and she could see nothing beyond it, but the voices reached her as clear as night.

"Yes, monsieur," said another man. "That is the diva, Mlle. Daaé."

"And the victim was just under the words, here?" the older man asked.

"Yes, monsieur. All in a heap. I saw the carpet this morning after they took him away. The blood was so thick, it still sat above the weave. Of course it's all soaked in now."

"So I see."

"Yes, of course, monsieur."

Christine's neck ached with how stiff she had become. She felt on the verge of being ill again, but she could not make her feet obey her to pass the door. The men continued their conversation:

"And those are his handprints in the blood on the wall and mirror there?"

"Well, I don't imagine they're the lady's monsieur."

"Who is your director?"

"Commissary Mifroid, monsieur."

"And do you think he called me in to consult on this case to be mocked?"

"No, monsieur. My apologies. It was a poor attempt at humor."

"Indeed."

_Go_ , Christine urged herself. But she could not.

"Do you see here?" the older man continued. "Mark me, you may learn something yet. Where the blood from the handprints is smudged and blurred. Someone… Someone wiped it into these letters with a cloth. I'd bet my life on it."

"Begging your pardon, but could it have been the victim, monsieur?"

"It is not beyond possibility. But no, young man. It was surely the murderer himself. Our Lord Darcy had one puncture in his stomach, one in his chest, and one in his back. Do you see here, where these drops lead? Yes, I know the carpet is red, but use your eyes. If this is where he ended, falling here, against the mirror, and sliding to the floor as these clawed streaks indicate, then I would bet my life it began over…here, where the tablecloth is spotted with blood. This gush on it here must be where the initial blow was struck."

"Could that be the cloth he used to wipe the words on the wall?"

"Before putting it back on the table? And replacing all the platters and silver? No, you imbecile. My god, are you the best man Mifroid can afford me? I will be having a word with him about you. "

"My apologies, monsieur. But the tablecloth—It is askew."

"Don't be ridiculous. My god. No wonder the surete can get nothing done."

"But the bowl there, monsieur. It is full of red and the silver is in disarray."

"And the carving knife is missing, yes? That is what your men this morning concluded. Naturally all of it was dashed out of place amid the struggle. And the blood in the melted ice in the shrimp bowl? Where our fiend, no doubt, washed the murder weapon before stealing it away. Naturally."

"Naturally, monsieur…"

"What is it?"

"It's just… Pardon me, monsieur, but I can find nothing natural about such ghastly business as this."

"Murder is one of the most natural things in the world, my young friend. All species great and small are guilty of it. Should man be such an exception?"

"Why, yes, of course."

"And why is that?"

"Man has God, monsieur."

"Indeed."

A clattering of silver and then distinct footsteps coming toward the door. Christine's pulse exploded in her throat and she took off down the corridor as fast as her exhausted feet could take her.

Once safely around a corner and out of sight should the men have left the banquet room, she fell against the wall and buried her face in the bundle in her arms. She had taken several long, deep breaths before she remembered what it was she carried, and then she jerked up. As she stared down at the bag, it began to tremble, but low voices approaching behind her snapped her focus from it. Steeling her resolve to defy the pounding in her temples, she forged on to complete her journey to the office where M. Mifroid waited.

A police officer stood in the anteroom outside his door and lifted a hand to stop Christine from entering. He offered her a polite smile before going into the room to announce her arrival.

As he opened the door, a voice rang out from within:

"You cannot be serious!"

Christine would have recognized the voice anywhere. It was Raoul.


	7. Suspects

 

When Christine was shown into the office, she saw Raoul seated in the same chair she had earlier occupied. He stood at once and turned as if he would come to her, but stopped himself with a hand on the chair's back.

"Thank you for returning so promptly, Mlle. Daae." Mifroid stood as well behind his desk, making her a little bow. She observed it only from the corner of her eye as her gaze was locked with Raoul's. His pale cheeks were spotted with color as they often were when he was incensed, but the look in his eyes was hesitant, confused. Had Mifroid not advised him she would be coming? The man seemed to be watching them closely. Whether Raoul noticed this or not, he gave her the usual formal tilt of his head he reserved for their public interactions.

"Mademoiselle," he murmured in greeting.

"Monsieur." She adjusted the garment bag uncomfortably in her arms. It seemed to weigh twice what it did when she took it from her dressing room only a few minutes ago.

"Molins," Mifroid addressed the office at the door behind Christine. "If you would take those items from Mlle. Daae and put them right over there on that table. Thank you."

Christine sighed as she was relieved of the burden, and clasped her hands tightly in effort to avoid looking to Raoul as pleadingly as she longed to.

The policeman Molins laid the bag out on the table and then went to the door.

"Wait, Molins, if you please." Mifroid gestured to the side of the door before the officer could leave. "Just there. We are not expecting any others. And if someone comes, well, they will knock, won't they?" He looked to Christine with a smile as if he expected her to be amused. She made a feeble attempt to return it, but her own confusion was already surmounting the nauseating anxiety that had compounded with every step she took from the conversation she overhead in the hall. Mifroid's earlier questions about Raoul took on troubling context indeed now that she understood her friend was being questioned in an official capacity. What had Mifroid suggested to make Raoul exclaim as she heard when the door opened? She burned to know, but dared not ask, afraid of the answer. After all, despite Mifroid suggesting Raoul, it was not _he_ who she dreaded fit the description of her violent, though heroic, rescuer. She could not even begin to imagine Raoul capable of such a thing!

"Thank you for bringing these things, Mlle. Daae," said Mifroid. "Have a seat, if you please. I merely need to ask M. le Vicomte a question or two more and then we will make short work of this business. I am certain you are eager to be gone from this place."

"Yes, monsieur." Christine managed to sound much less eager than she felt. "Thank you." The nearest chair at the edge of the room afforded her a full view of Mifroid, but Raoul was in profile as he faced the Police commissary. The men resumed their seats, and Mifroid picked up his pen.

"Now, M. le Vicomte, if you will kindly inform me. Where were you between the hours of two and four o'clock this morning?"

Raoul shifted in his chair, glancing quickly at Christine before answering Mifroid. "You have already asked me this." His voice had an edge to it that made Christine twist her hands in her skirt over her lap. He looked as tired and ill as she felt. The circumstance seemed to make him more irritated than disheartened, though. As if he had aged years in mere hours. For the first time, she thought he actually looked like his brother. She could not help marveling somewhat at the energy of it though, despite how different he was now from the sweet, carefree young man he had been at the party last night.

"Have I?" Mifroid asked as if the declaration were news to him. "Indulge me, if you please." He looked to Christine himself, then. Did he expect her to be confused? Or intrigued? She felt too troubled and fatigued for either emotion to dominate her expression. But the man's earlier questions about Raoul prickled her. Despite how Mifroid implied the murderer's heroic motivations might exonerate his gruesome deeds, she knew the scandal of it all would be more damaging to Raoul than she could bear.

It struck her then that it was probably already too late for that. Raoul had nothing to do with any of it; she told herself that must be true. But there would be no stopping the wagging of Parisian tongues. Raoul caught her eye once more. Was he thinking the same thing? Though something about his look gave her the impression he was filled with much more concern for how she might receive his answer than for his own reputation.

"I was with Mlle. Daae," he told Mifroid. "In the ballroom. She felt unwell, so I left the room to find a waiter to bring her a glass of water."

"Is that so?" Mifroid's attention snapped up from his notebook, his eyebrows raised. If he had indeed already asked Raoul this question, had Raoul's answer been different the first time? Christine's fingers dug into her skirt.

Raoul's hand curled around the clawed arms of the chair and the color rose again in his cheek. "Yes. I am not exactly sure of the time. But we were hardly alone in that room. Ask anyone."

Mifroid looked to Christine. "Mademoiselle?"

"Yes. Exactly so, monsieur." She straightened in her seat. Poor, poor Raoul. Christine could only imagine what his brother would say to him of this. Or perhaps already had. She felt an uncharacteristic seed of contempt rise in her breast for Mifroid. Surely Raoul's reputation as a Chagny should be enough to speak to his character. If Mifroid meant to dismiss that, what could Christine possibly do or say that would not make everything worse by her mere association with him?

Mifroid only gave her a polite nod before returning his attention to Raoul across the desk. "And then, after you found the waiter, monsieur? If you please."

"Well…" Raoul paused. His gaze flicked to Christine from the corner of his eye. If was only for an instant, but she saw stark worry there before he answered Mifroid. "I didn't find one. That was the trouble. I was some time about looking, but the hour was late."

"Indeed. But your search came to an end at some point, I presume?"

"Well, of course." Another look askance in Christine's direction, and then Raoul shifted in his chair. "I… I returned to the ballroom."

"And Mlle. Daae?"

"Well, she wasn't there. I assumed she went home." Raoul pushed himself out of his chair to face Christine across the room. "Mademoiselle, how can I ever ask your forgiveness?" His hand pressed to his breast over his jacket. "You were feeling unwell, and so I thought… But it was a foolish thought."

"Monsieur," Mifroid cut in. "If you would please resume your seat. We can be done with this business all the faster if you would answer my questions in a straightforward manner."

Crimson blossomed over Raoul's face and a look flashed across his clear blue eyes then that was darker than any Christine had ever noticed. It was enough to make her tremble. He was still for a moment and then returned stiffly to his chair. "Indeed, monsieur."

"Quite. So you returned to the ballroom, assumed Mlle. Daae had gone home. And then?"

"I too went home. You may ask the count. You may ask the coachman. The footmen. My valet. The count's valet. Whomsoever else it pleases you on that matter. Ask. Do it."

"I am sure that won't be necessary." Mifroid laid his pen upon his notebook.

Raoul's fingers clenched the chair's arms then as if he might pull them apart. His lips worked, but he only glanced to Christine once more and then folded his hands over his lap. "Are you quite finished, M. Mifroid? You have kept this lady waiting much too long. Can't you see that she is unwell and needs to go home to rest?"

"Of course, monsieur. Though, if you would be so kind, there is one more question I should like to put to you."

Raoul took a breath, and for a moment Christine was certain he meant to refuse. But then he nodded and made a gesture for the commissary to be on with it.

"May I see your handkerchief?" Mifroid asked.

Raoul looked too bemused then to maintain his simmering indignation. He blinked, then reached into his pocket to hand Mifroid the pressed square of white linin across the desk.

Unfolding it, Mifroid beckoned to the officer at the door. "Molins, would you please bring me the tray from the third door in that cabinet beside you?" He smoothed the handkerchief against the desk beside his notebook. "Thank you Molins. Ah, I see. Yes, it is quite as I expected."

"What is?" Raoul leaned forward.

Christine could just barely see what sat in tray the officer placed before Mifroid—a crumpled brownish red cloth the same size as the handkerchief.

Raoul reached across the desk, but Mifroid pulled the tray beyond his grasp with a flick of his fingers. "Please, M. le Vicomte, I thank you not to touch it. This soiled handkerchief was found near the victim this morning. The embroidered initial made me wonder if it perhaps belonged to you or your brother."

"My brother?" For a moment Raoul looked too confused to be offended, but then the incensed color came crashing back to his features. "It is mine, monsieur. I do not deny that. But I was nowhere near that man last night! And I shall thank you to leave my family out of this entire affair."

"I'm afraid that is not possible, monsieur." Mifroid spread his hands against the table as if that might soothe Raoul's temper. "We must pursue every probability. For instance, I have heard that your friendship with Mlle. Daae was topic of contention between you and the count."

"This is beyond tolerance!" Raoul tensed, poised to spring from his chair, but then he only slumped back in it again and passed his hand across his brow.

Mifroid nodded as if he meant to agree, but could not help the circumstances, and then he looked to Christine. "Mlle. Daae. Have you had any recent interactions with the Count de Chagny?"

"No, monsieur!" If Christine didn't know the count regularly attended the opera and had seen several of her performances, she would have doubted he even realized she existed. "I have never spoken to him."

"I've already told you it is my handkerchief." Raoul looked up sharply.

Mifroid nodded with an air of sympathy that was just a touch too exaggerated. "Then if you would be so kind as to tell me how it came to be at the scene of the unfortunate affair?"

"I don't know! Someone… Someone means to implicate me in this? Is that it? Is that why you are asking all these questions?"

Before Mifroid could reply, Christine recalled pressing Raoul's handkerchief to her lips the night before after misswallowing champagne. "Monsieur? If you will recall, you leant it to me. Pardon my interruption messieurs, but it is true. I had it. I… I must have dropped it there. In that room, where… where he took me. I'm sorry, I don't remember."

"I see," said Mifroid.

The handkerchief in the leather tray before him looked nothing like the one she recalled. It had been crisp, and white, and smelt of cedar. Now it looked like a barren mountaintop, crinkled and hardened with blood. Her blood? She recalled more clearly than she could ever wish how the bright blood from the wound in her hair soaked into her glove. Had she used the handkerchief then? She remembered nothing of it. Nothing of it in the hours between when Raoul first offered to her to when she lost consciousness. But surely she'd kept it? "I must have pressed it to my head before I lost it. It… I was bleeding terribly."

"No mademoiselle," said Mifroid. "It would seem the blood on this cloth is that of the victim. It was used to wipe the wall before it was discarded on the floor beside him. The murderer wiped your name with it on the wall in the victim's blood."

If he said _blood_ one more time, surely the last of it would rush from Christine's head. She went dizzy and dropped her face into her hands. Her cheeks against her palms felt ice cold.

As if through a fog, she head Raoul abandon his chair and approach, but he did not touch her. She lifted her eyes in time to see him round on Mifroid, gesturing angrily across the desk. "Your behavior is beyond reproach, monsieur!"

"A thousand pardons, I beg you both. I shall speak no more of it in the lady's presence." As Mifroid rose to cross the room to the garment bag on the table, Christine could not help noticing how he watched her. The look in his eye belied the sympathy of his tone; it was too sharp, too calculating.

Opening the bag, he sifted through the contents without drawing any of the items from it. "Is this everything you had with you last night, Mlle. Daae?"

"Yes." Her voice sounded too chocked. She wasn't sure if he heard her, so she said it again. "Yes."

His back was to her then, so she dared to look at Raoul. He remained standing halfway between his chair and hers and was making no effort to disguise the concern with which he studied her. The expression clutched at her heart, and she shook her head. What would his brother do regarding him in light of all this? She could not imagine a scenario that looked well for Raoul. That he should suffer because this happened to her and _because_ of her filled her with almost as much anguish as she felt upon waking this morning. Tears burned at her eyes, but she pressed the back of her hand to them before he could see.

And Erik… No—she could not think about Erik now. She could not.

"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Mifroid. "It shall be returned to you when we have concluded our examination. Along with the hairpins my men found this morning."

"No." Christine's head snapped up. "No. I don't want it. Any of it. Please. Throw it all away."

He turned to look across the room at her, and then glanced at Raoul curiously before nodding. "As you wish, mademoiselle. Thank you for your time. And you as well, monsieur."

Could it be they were dismissed? It seemed too good to be true, but Raoul was already offering Christine his arm, and she took it to stand and left the room with him almost too quickly to bid the commissary a proper good-bye.

She walked in silence at Raoul's side down the corridor until it seemed they were alone and Raoul touched her arm to stop her.

"Christine." The color in his cheeks remained, but the indignation was gone from his gaze. It roved over her features as if he feared they might fall to pieces.

She shook her head a lifted a finger to her lips. "Hush, Raoul. He had a man follow me before. They might hear us even now."

"Let them! I have nothing to hide. Christine—"

"No, Raoul." She pressed her fingers to the sleeve of his coat, terrified of what he might say, though not sure why. "Not here. Come." Twisting the material over his arm, she drew him to the corridor that would lead them outside to the Rue Scribe.

"My coach is waiting," he said as he followed her. "Please let me take you home. Christine, you must rest. You have been—"

"I—" But even as she meant to cut him off to decline his offer—for both their sakes!—the throbbing behind her temples resurged cruelly. Her home was only a fifteen minute walk from the Opera, but every step now made her want to weep. She sighed and nodded in assent.

Once they were in the privacy of his coach, she sank against the velvet seat and pressed fluttering fingertips to her eyelids. "Raoul," she breathed. "I did not tell that man the truth, Raoul."

He leaned forward in his seat across from hers and took her hands so that he could see her face.

She pulled them from him and began to wring them. "I did not give him everything."

"Christine, what are you saying?"

"My gloves. I was wearing gloves last night. They are gone. I could not find them anywhere. He… he took my gloves."

"Who did?" Raoul demanded, his concern immediately overwhelmed by anger.

"I don't know! That is the torment of it. I don't know who helped me."

Raoul sank back against his seat, his hands falling into his lap. "Don't you, Christine?"

She shook her head. "Was it you?"

"I wish it were!"

"Oh, Raoul, please don't say such things." She wanted to reach across to him then, to do anything to soften that violence in his gaze that looked so unlike the friend she knew. But she dared not. "But it was not you."

"It was _him_ , wasn't it? Your singing master. The one who deceived you, yet you still insist upon seeing. For your sake, I said nothing to that man Mifroid about him, but tell me the truth, Christine."

"I have told you, I do not know. I can remember nothing." The coach rattled over rough cobbles and Christine felt the last of the warmth seep from her flesh. She shook her head, desperate to believe Raoul's words were not true. "But no, it could not be. It could not be him."

"How do you know?"

"He wasn't at the Opera last night."

Raoul laughed, a bitter sound that made Christine flinch.

"He told me he was going away," she insisted. "He won't be back until…"

"Until when, Christine? He has lied to you before. Surely he's lied again. Who else could have done such a ghastly thing?"

Sudden warmth prickled Christine and she stiffened in her seat. "I am sure I do not know!" Who else, indeed? Erik was strange, but not soulless. If he were capable of doing such a thing, in such a way as she overhead described… Then he was not the friend she'd come to accept over the weeks since he'd begged forgiveness for his deception. And no—no, it was all too traumatic to have not been real. Raoul's assertion filled her with a clarity of thought she was not expecting. Erik would not lie to her again.

The coach came to a stop before her building, but Christine made no move to get out.

"Christine." Raoul moved to the seat beside her. "You said he would kill for you."

She did say that… She did not like to think of it, but if she made herself, she could not deny the festering suspicion that Erik had something to do with the tragic accident the night the chandelier fell when Carlotta sang Marguerite. And every gossiping tongue at the Opera accused him of Joseph Bouquet's death, even though they did not realize it was _Erik_ they were accusing. But what that had to do with Christine, she could not fathom. _Disasters. Accidents_. How many more could the Opera endure?

A sob caught in Christine's throat, and she pressed her hand to her lips.

Raoul's arms were around her at once, and she felt his trembling breath against her hair. When he spoke, his words were soft, but the fury in them was impossible to conceal. "He is a madman, Christine."

"Yes," she whispered, and turned her face against his coat. Erik was mad for _her_ , she knew that much. She was in no position to speculate on the remainder of his faculties, no matter how clearheaded he always seemed. No matter how sharp his unsettling sense of humor that kept her on edge with its dryness. No matter how miserably he so openly suffered as she continued to deny him her heart. But that was exactly why she had to handle things carefully. Yesterday, he decreed she would come to him tonight, and to do anything but exactly that would be to risk sparking his anger and jealousy.

Surely if he knew what she had been through, he would understand… But she wanted to believe that he did not know. She wanted to believe that he was as innocent as Raoul, and would be waiting for her behind her mirror with no idea why she might not feel well enough to humor his decrees. To not go to Erik tonight would be to admit that she was convinced of his guilt.

Raoul must have sensed her turmoil, for she felt his fingers move through her hair and his arm tighten around her back. He was so warm…

"Raoul," she breathed. "We mustn't." She flinched and worked herself out of his embrace. "If he knew I was with you now…"

His hands fell, but he did not move back. "We were closer at the ball last night."

She shook her head, pained. "He gave me permission to be with you then." _Have a ball_ , he'd said. It made her heart twist.

Hurt flashed across Raoul's expression. "How generous of him! So are you his, then, Christine? To lend out on his whim?"

Christine jerked away and stared at him in speechless offence. Her lips parted, but she could only shake her head. Her hand fumbled for the carriage door, but when she found it, she moved through with determination. "Do not follow me, Raoul."

His jaw clenched, and he looked away as the door fell shut. Christine heard him signal the driver, and the coach was gone before she even reached her doorstep.

Thank you again! Love you all!


	8. Confessions

 

Ten minutes until seven o'clock, or so claimed the small brass clock on Christine's dressing table. Her private room at the opera had no windows, and it might have been midnight. She used to love that about the dressing room. It felt like a pocket away from the world where she could be alone with her thoughts, her dreams. And then later, her angel. But in the weeks since she learned there was no angel, only Erik, the room came to remind her too much of his subterranean home. No windows, no daylight, no world. Always midnight.

After the day she'd had, it felt later than midnight. She'd rested at home for the afternoon, but even her most rational thoughts and fears could not persuade her to refrain from returning to the opera to meet Erik as he'd yesterday demanded, in his way.

She'd made up her mind, though, not to go with him. She meant to speak to him, to his voice in the air as she only ever did in this room, and then leave by the corridor door and return home to her apartment and her maid and her Mama.

All her determination meant nothing, however, when Erik finally arrived. For he was singing, and his voice drew her to the great mirror before she understood what she was doing, and then she was in the dark with him, his cold hand over her mouth, invisible save for his luminous eyes.

She meant to pull from him, she knew she wanted to, but her effort dissolved as the soft strains of his voice enveloped her, preyed upon her exhaustion, severed the remaining bare thread of her nerves that was too frayed to be called terror anymore.

It wasn't until she was in the warmth of the drawing room on the lake that Christine's swimming mind found purchase. She was upon the chaise with the little round pillows, but with no recollection of having sat there. As Erik's song ended, she blinked up at him and tried to remember why she was supposed to be afraid. Why her entire body ached, why raw pain throbbed at her hairline.

He stood stiff and silent, looking overdressed in his heavy cloak in the soft light of the drawing room. Christine could no longer see his eyes beyond the dark holes of his black mask, but she could feel how they studied every part of her. Her fingers dug into the edge of the cushion and she pushed back against the pillows. But before she could speak, Erik crumpled before her. It was as if he had been struck a blow, and he fell to his knees, bent so the top of his hood almost brushed her dress.

His shoulders shook beneath the cloak and Christine's hand was already lifting before she remembered she did not want to touch him. She pressed her fingers to the bandage on her brow instead.

"Are you sorry then, Erik?" she asked, her voice trembling more than she wished.

"Christine," he moaned. It seemed he meant to say something more, but he only shook his head.

So it was true. Christine had not anticipated how the confirmation would affect her. A fluttering in her stomach made her breath catch, and her face burst with heat before growing cold, cold, cold. She'd known it must be true, of course, but she only now realized how desperately she'd been hoping it wasn't.

"I want…" Her voice was too hoarse to be audible. She gasped and tried again. "I want to go, Erik. You must take me back right now. You…"

His head snapped up, and his eyes flashed in the hollows of the mask. "No," he said, looking at her from the floor. "No, never again."

Christine flinched and the cold in her face flooded her entire frame. She hadn't been afraid of him before, she knew that now. Because this was true fear.

His hand moved to brush the hem of her skirt, but then he stopped himself before it made contact. He curled his fingers tightly and stood in a burst of energy. "Do you think I'll let you go back there now?" He laughed, a pained, bitter sound, and then he moaned again and lifted his hands as if he meant to cover his face, but the feeling of the mask stopped him.

"Erik," she whispered. "You must."

He shook his head sharply and pulled off his cloak, crossing the room to hang it on the hook by the invisible door.

There was no escape. Christine had learned that far too well the first time he brought her here weeks ago. She had reasoned with him since then, they had found a way to trust each other. He always let her go and come as she wished.

"I won't betray you," she promised as calmly as she could manage to keep her stuttering voice even as she felt too frozen to move from her seat. "Do you think I would tell anyone? No one will know you did it."

"What?" He turned back to look at her across the room.

Slowly and very carefully, Christine pushed herself up from the couch. It would do her no good to plead with him. Not when he was in this mood. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at him. He did not speak, but the tension seeped out of his shoulders as he took in her expression.

"Why, Erik? Why did you…" She couldn't bring herself to say it.

"I didn't know. How could I have known? But I should have known. You tried to tell me, Christine. Yesterday, you tried to tell me and I…" He shook his head and his hands hovered before his face again as if they meant to claw at his own eyes, but were repelled by the mask.

She wanted to be as angry at his insinuations of yesterday as she'd been at the time, but after what happened, she blamed herself for it more than anything. Erik had been right. If she had only been blunt with Lord d'Arcy days ago, the first or second time he'd made his advances, it never would have come to this. The thought made her want to start weeping again, but she bit her lip against it. She would have time for the grief and remorse once she was free from Erik.

But Erik had not answered the question. Not the question she meant, in any case. She shook her head, her fingers digging into the fabric over her elbows. But before she could ask again, he'd crossed the room and was before her once more.

"How could I go, Christine? Never again. And how could I let you attend that party with only that boy for protection? And how he could have left your side!" His hands clenched. "I'll kill him." He twisted around as if he meant to rush off to do it at that very moment, and Christine's hands shot out to catch his arm.

"Erik!"

He was tense under her grip, but in a moment, crumpled again and slowly looked down at her. "Ah, no." He sighed. "For he has made it right, hasn't he? And you are safe now."

"Who? Erik." She almost didn't want to ask. "What are you talking about?"

"Your vicomte. Your dear friend. Your…" The muscles in his arm under her grip grew taut, but he did not pull from her. She was too afraid to let him go.

"He didn't do anything wrong, Erik."

"Didn't he!"

"He only left me because I asked him to find me a glass of water. I asked him to. It is my fault."

Erik laughed again, the bitterness magnified tenfold. "No, I suppose he didn't do anything wrong, after all, did he? Wouldn't Erik have done the same? Wouldn't… But of course, Erik would have not made such a mess of it."

A creeping chill had begun to worm its way, unspiraling from Christine's heart. "Erik, I don't…" She shook her head. "What are you saying?"

He stiffened and studied her face, and for a moment she got the impression that he was as confused as she was. "Surely you understand, Christine?"

"No!" She thought she understood that he would resort to violence to protect her, that he was the only person in the world potentially capable of such horror. But now nothing seemed to make sense at all.

"How blind are you, child? Do you mean to tell me you don't know that your little friend killed that vermin in your name?"

Christine gasped and jerked back. Her legs collided with the chaise, and she put a hand against the bookshelf.

His head tilted as he studied her. "You thought… You thought it was Erik who killed Lord d'Arcy?" He threw his head back then and laughed, but before it died, the sound had become more like a sob. He turned from her and put his hands on the writing desk, his eyes fixed on the empty table.

She didn't want to believe him. She fought every inclination to do so. Raoul could have never done such a thing. It was impossible to imagine. There must be some other answer. "But… swear it to me then, Erik. Swear that it wasn't you."

"Such declarations from me mean nothing, Christine." His words were little more than a murmur, directed at the mahogany. "Did _he_ swear you such a thing?"

"How do you expect me to believe you?" She desperately wanted a convincing answer.

"I don't." His frame shuddered and his fingers curled on the table, and then he faced her.

"I want to go home, Erik."

"No." He folded his arms, seeming to think for a moment as if he might change his answer, but then shook his head. "He denies it, then? The coward. The least he could do if he is a man of honor would be to undeceive _you._ "

"Raoul didn't kill him! He could never, Erik."

"How much did he have to drink?"

Christine shivered. She didn't know the answer to that except that it had been more than she'd had.

"That boy has a temper, Christine. He risks his family's status to escort you to parties. He may as well throw his title in the river. What did he have to lose?"

No—no she did not even want to consider it. She could not think of Raoul right now. If Erik was truly gone from the Opera as he claimed, how could he know who did it at all? But if the blood was not spilled by Erik's hand, then Christine could at least be encouraged of reasoning with him about her captivity. "Erik, please. Tell me you didn't do it."

"A carving knife? All that blood? Not my style, Christine. You would know if I did it. It would have been done artfully. Cleanly. With finesse."

She shuddered and looked down at the spines of the books. If he meant for her to believe Raoul could do such a thing in such a way in a moment of passion and temper, why wouldn't she believe Erik just as capable? And there was a tone of pride to his words that made accepting them deliver its own series of terrifying conclusions. "You've… Have you ever killed someone before?"

He turned away, went to the piano.

She didn't want to press him for an answer. But if she let the matter go, then she would be indulging her own ignorance, settling into complacency. She would stop asking him to take her back. Knowing his sins would give her strength. "Erik?"

"Stop asking questions, Christine."

"No."

He looked over his shoulder at her then as if he thought she might have been replaced with someone else.

"I am very tired, Erik. I want to sleep. I will stay," she conceded as if she had a choice. She would convince him to take her back in the morning. "But if you are a man of honor, you must answer me."

He seemed to laugh, though there was no sound to it. His fingers brushed just as silently over the lid of the piano's keyboard. After a very long moment, he sighed. "Yes, Christine." His hand fell, limp to his side. "Yes, Erik has killed."

"When?" she asked, her mind reeling with all the recent tragedies at the Opera. She held her breath.

"It was many years ago," Erik sighed the words. The sound was more wistful than Christine liked, but she wanted to believe him, and when she exhaled, she felt something like hope rise with the breath. Joseph Buquet's death had been suicide then, as the police concluded after all.

"Erik…" As much as she was repulsed by the confirmation of murder, she wanted to ask why, when, where. But he must have sensed it for he pushed back the keyboard lid.

"No more questions, Christine."

"How did you do it, Erik?"

"Never with a knife."

That wasn't what she meant. She should have said how _could_ you do it. But his answer chilled with the implication that he'd done it _more than once._ Her throat felt too clotted to ask any more. And then he was playing Chopin and she could not bear to interrupt the music.

She was so, so tired.

Though she hadn't let herself think of it since they parted, she could not help dwelling now on how sharply Raoul's last words to her stung. A tear escaped her closed eyes and rolled down her cheek, melting into the corner of the couch where she rested as she drifted to the music. By the time Erik's nocturne was finished, the cushion was soaked.

It really was only her fault. As if she'd struck the gruesome blows herself. It didn't matter who actually killed him. Lord d'Arcy would be alive now if not for Christine.

Erik's hands were as gentle as down when he lifted her to put her to bed in the Louis-Philippe room. He did not tell her not to cry, merely wiped her tears with a silk handkerchief of deep maroon and sang her to sleep.


	9. Letters

 

For the first time since the night of the murder, Christine awoke without pain. How many hours or days she'd been in Erik's house, she could not tell, and she was afraid to ask him. She'd strayed little from bed, though she'd eaten several times and he changed the dressing on her forehead twice before removing it completely last night. Though whether it had been night at all, she did not know. He used to wind her watch for her, but now even he did not bother with such things.

The lack of pain left Christine's mind feeling clear, but hollow after so many tears shed and dried. It was a slow, creeping thing, but the realization that Erik did not actually outright deny killing Lord d'Arcy took firm hold on Christine's rationality. She did not think he would lie to her about it, but could he have done it without fully understanding the act? A blind rage, unremembered? Sometimes he seemed the most lucid and logical man she'd ever known, but at other times, she was convinced he must be mad. Could madness deceive one's own mind over such an act?

There was time missing that day, she'd had enough hours of reflection to determine that much. Hadn't he told her he would be gone for the night, but back in the morning? And then come for Christine in the evening. How did he pass the day between his return to the Opera and the moment he drew Christine through the mirror? The commissary Mifroid implied the murder happened between two thirty and four o'clock. Well, that was morning, wasn't it? She shuddered at the very thought of asking Erik the exact time of his return to the Opera.

It was not that she wished to believe him guilty, but the alternative chilled her infinitely more.

Raoul's explanation to Mifroid of the night seemed to be missing time as well. Since Erik mentioned it, she realized she'd never known Raoul to drink as much champagne as he had that night. At the time, he seemed in control of his senses to Christine, but had she been in control of her own? How might he have truly felt beyond her observation? If the trauma of her experience in that empty room, pressed against that white-clothed table had been enough to rob her of her memories, could Raoul have been robbed of his own in combination of the fire fueled by champagne? Men changed when they drank beyond their limits, Christine was not so naive to be ignorant of that fact. The forgetfulness that often followed then was either curse or blessing by turns. But could Raoul, her dear friend, the boy who used to follow her door to door begging for fairy stories, change so horrifically to be capable of such violence? He possessed a jealous heart, she knew that. It drove him to words of cruelty, but never acts. But could he have acted if it meant rescuing Christine? And then received the blessing of the whole affair being blocked from his mind? Would that then make him as mad as Erik?

And so even though neither could now know the truth, they accused each other. Of course they did. They hated each other, even though Christine had rejected them both as suitors. She stared at the items on the mirror-less vanity table, her fingers brushing over a silver-handled comb. She did not want to marry anyone, she never had. All she wanted was to sing, to make her father in heaven proud and her invalid adopted mama happy. She had failed at that, was failing miserably, until Erik helped her. And since then everything had become too complicated to ever untangle.

Could either of them be lying? She did not want to think either was mad. Not truly. But whatever the explanation, one had murdered for her with or without knowing it. Could Christine forgive that? Could it happen again?

But their reactions to the accusations felt too genuine to be lies; they weren't actors. Christine was the one who made her living pretending to be opposite herself on stage. She would have been playing one of the most opposite roles of her career if Lord d'Arcy had lived to direct her as the soubrette in his opera.

 _Delicious passion…_ The memory of his voice played in her ears and she shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself and dropping her forehead against the table. The thick way he swallowed between words, the twitch of his lips, the rasp of his breath, it all lived even as he did not. She pushed it away and tried to think of the Opera. Erik reminded her every time he came into her room these days past that he meant for her to never return. He told her he loved her and he would keep her and she was safe with him. She had not argued, she had only wanted to sleep.

Christine could imagine what it was like to be a man in love, perhaps well more than most young women. She played one on the stage more often than she'd ever played Marguerite. Could Siebel be driven to murder if he walked into a room and witnessed Marguerite being attacked? Perhaps… Perhaps indeed, if it were the last recourse to save his beloved. But try as she might to meld her mind with the character's as she did on stage, Christine could not conceive of him then being crazed enough with the horror of it to smear words in blood on the wall.

It was the _words_ that plagued Christine more than any other part. She could believe the murder the fault of either of her two jealous friends. But how could anyone who truly loved her have written those words unless they were mad?

When she was dressed, Christine found the door to Erik's room ajar. She went in without knocking, too weary for the pretense of formality. If he did not want her there, he would have locked it. He was at his writing table, his back to her, his pen moving.

She was silent, and he did not stop writing, so she thought he must be unaware of her presence, until he spoke.

"You know I am not wearing my mask, Christine."

He never did in his own room. The death's heads that adorned the great organ beyond him glowered at Christine over Erik's bent head as if to remind her of a tame, mute version of what she would see if he should glance in her direction. Pulling her eyes from him, she looked to the coffin in the center of the room. The dark, polished wood reflected the light of the candelabras from so many angles it looked as if it could itself be on fire. Lord d'Arcy must be in a coffin like that by now. No longer on such a bier if ever it was, but buried deep in churchyard soil. How grateful she was to have not witnessed his death or seen him afterward. How he must have looked...

The scratching of Erik's pen, the tap against the inkwell—these were enough to ground Christine in the present moment and draw her to him.

"What are you writing, Erik?"

Over his shoulder, she tried to make out the scrawled words on the sheets of stationary across his desk. The pages were pale yellow with embossed black edges, but the writing seemed to bleed together before her eyes. He was using red ink.

"You should keep your nose out of Erik's business, my dear."

She was not afraid of him, she could not let herself be afraid of him. She took the final step to his side, and the red words began to take focus. One seemed to jump out at her. Her own name. She put her hand over Erik's. It was cold, and stilled under her touch. The pen made a dark slow blot of ink, marring his last sentence before he looked up at her.

"I think it is my business," she said.

He laughed, and Christine did her best not to grimace at the sight of it. When he lifted his hand to put his pen in the stand, hers fell away.

"I am writing a letter to your employer about your departure."

"You must not speak for me, Erik. I want to go back."

His fingers clamped around her wrist, and he stood. She kept her shoes planted, and he was so close between her and his chair that she could not see his face above her head. When he did not speak, she made herself look up. His features were so still that he looked no more alive than the faces decorating his organ.

"I thought you had changed your mind." His hand slid down hers and let go.

"I have not," she said a little more gently.

He sighed and turned back to his desk, flipping over the papers. Three envelopes lined the top of the blotter, but none were yet addressed.

"It looks like blood," she said as his writing disappeared from her view.

"Yes." A note of pride rang in his tone.

Taking a step back, Christine wrapped her arms around herself. It was always colder in Erik's room than the rest of his strange house. "Did you see it?"

He glanced at her, then seemed to remember himself and turned away to spare her the sight of his face.

"Did you see the writing on the wall, Erik?"

He sighed again. "Yes, Christine."

"Is… is it still there?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. It would be rather macabre of them to leave it, don't you think?"

She wanted to ask when he saw it, but held her tongue for the same reason she could not ask him what time he actually returned to the Opera that morning. She let another question escape instead. "What did it look like?"

He shifted on his feet as if he would look at her again, but stopped himself and drew a fresh sheet of stationery from the box. Resuming his seat, he took up his pen, but did nothing more than stare at the page, and then returned it to the stand. "Rather like this." He dipped one of his long, white fingers into the inkwell, then brushed a long curved streak across the creamy paper, followed by jagged strokes. Then he used the pen to sketch faint lines and shadows of embellishment around the smears. Christine was too fascinated by the speed and skill with which he recreated the image to stay back, and she moved close to watch him. He worked with both hands, dipping one's fingertips into the ink and brushing with the pen with the other. How different the result looked from the scrawled, heavy penmanship in his letters.

_For Christine_

The first word was above her name and at an upward angle, smaller and fainter in color as if the ink—blood—were running out when it was written, the u and r barely legible. The C was exaggeratedly large, a deep crescent with no loops. The rest of her name was in a disjointed script with the last three letters nothing more than a wavy line and final tiny twist.

Erik looked up at her and whatever he saw in her expression made him give a quiet laugh. "There now." He blotted his fingertips on the page and then wiped them with one of his dark-colored handkerchiefs. "Does that look like the handwriting of your well-bred young man?"

Heat rose in Christine's cheeks and she shook her head. "It doesn't look like anyone's."

"I know what can settle it." Erik jumped up from the table and left the room. He was gone so fast, Christine could not even think of what he might mean, much less ask it.

She turned to the desk and brushed a fingertip over the air above the words. They were so wet, the paper was curling. Shuddering, she turned it over like Erik had done with his letters. They were in a stack at the side of the desk. She was just reaching for the top one when Erik returned to the room.

"See what I have here." He was wearing one of his black silk masks and held a folded sheet of paper aloft.

Christine clasped her hands behind her back and shook her head. "I can't unless you show it to me."

He laughed as if she'd meant to make a joke and then unfolded the paper and dropped it on the table next to the page Christine had turned over. He made no move to right it, there was no need. The red ink was so thick it soaked through and most of the ghastly writing was visible from the back side.

"Where did you get this?" Christine moved to take up the letter Erik brought, but then pulled her hand back as if it might burn her. She recognized Raoul's handwriting in a note to her she had long forgotten receiving. It was small and neat and black, and of course it looked nothing like the red smears.

"You threw it away," Erik said as if that were answer enough. "From the time when you used to like to lie to me about what he meant to you."

Christine bristled and reached for the letter again, but Erik snatched it up before she could. "Oh yes," he said. "But then you weren't lying to Erik, as far as you knew, were you? You were lying to an angel. And that is a far greater sin, Christine."

"You are a hypocrite, Erik," she said softly. "To speak so of lies." She would not defend her feelings or actions to him, not anymore. She had found it in her heart to forgive him for his past deception, and she was grateful for how he helped her singing, her place at the opera. As far as she was concerned, they had made peace of it and owed each other nothing now.

Erik laughed again and lifted the letter to the tall candelabra beside the desk in order to scrutinize the shape of the writing in the light of the flame.

"You need not look at it that way," Christine said, perturbed by his amusement. "It is obviously nothing alike."

"I like to look at it," he said. "The boy was clearly in pain when he wrote it."

Christine flinched and turned away from him. "Open the door to the lake, Erik. I want to go now."

He sighed and the paper rustled. When he moved around her, it was gone from his hands. But he did not say no.

Christine reached deep into her weary soul to summon the persuasive spirit she had used the last time she needed to convince him to set her free. She kept her words soft. "You will make me hate you if you keep me here. He who would harm me is dead, Erik. There is nothing to fear."

"He who killed him is not."

"Would he—whoever he may be—harm me?"

Erik shook his head and looked toward the coffin. "Perhaps."

Christine put a hand on his sleeve, and the effect was immediate. He turned back to her, and his eyes glinted in the hollows of his mask, wavered with the candlelight.

"Are you afraid I won't return?" she asked. When he did not answer, she pressed on. "I want to sing, Erik. I… I need to lose myself in it, or I'll go mad with all that's in my mind now."

"We'll sing here." He turned to the organ, but she pressed his arm to keep him from going to it.

"I want to sing for Paris, for the world, like you always talked about."

He shook his head. "Sing for me, Christine. That is all I require now."

"Please don't make me hate you," she whispered. "There… there is an inquest. Surely you know that? What will they think if I disappear this way? How will it seem to them to receive a letter from you about me? They… they will think I played some hand in it. They will think I know who did it."

He moved as if he would pull his arm from her touch, but could not quite manage it. "Reputation means nothing, Christine, if you do not return. Let them suspect whatever they like. It means nothing. You are safe here."

"No." She released him and turned to the desk. "No." The letters on it seemed to mock her with their black edges. "No." Before she knew what she was doing, she had the stack of them in her hands and was tearing them. She threw the scraps at Erik and left the room.

"Christine!"

He caught up with her in the hall, taking her by the arm.

Wrenching from his grasp, she rounded on him. "Take me back now, Erik." All her reasons for demanding it seemed pale excuses to her mind now, but she was loath to admit it. Erik wasn't wrong—even if they accused Christine of killing d'Arcy herself, what would it matter if she never went back again? Remaining nestled in the cocoon of Erik's home where time lost all meaning had a measure of appeal that made Christine's heart ache. Did she even really want to go back anymore? How easy would it be to forget about her life, her loved ones, her career and just sink into the void of dreams and music Erik inhabited. Drown in it until she too ceased to exist. None of it would have happened if not for her.

Erik said nothing. Could he see how her soul was dripping away? Perhaps, because he finally opened the door.


	10. Theories

 

Alone beyond the Rue Scribe gate, Christine tucked Erik's key into the pocket of her skirts. It was a dark, cloudy day, but she guessed it could not be much past noon. As she considered the hulking building that loomed above her, she was tempted to turn away from it and simply walk home. When she left him, Erik told her he would be watching her always, listening always. It felt more like a warning than an assurance, but Christine was careful to humor him until he finally allowed her to take the last steps from the Opera's cellars. If she went home, how could he possibly keep such a promise?

But leaving now would be no different than if she had stayed in Erik's house. All her arguments to him for wanting to return had to do with the Opera and the aftermath of the murder. She needed to make an appearance, otherwise she would only prove herself a liar, and not just to Erik, but to her own heart. Moreover, she was worried about Raoul. What had occurred between him and the police since she last saw him? Between him and his family?

Making her way back into the Opera took longer than she anticipated, as she was stopped often by porters and hands eager to ask after her well-being. Christine was touched by their concern and attention, and she learned from one that three days had passed since the murder.

She was equally surprised by the way several other people with whom she used to enjoy friendly acquaintance reacted at the sight of her. They turned their backs or gave her cold looks without a word. Though how could Christine have forgotten that there were those who esteemed Lord d'Arcy? She was the woman he died for, and so they must despise her. Her heart grew heavier with each step as she absorbed this understanding.

"Of course, we didn't know you were back!" said a steward, who was blessedly happy to see her. "M. Remy let me know if anyone should see you that M. Mercier wishes to speak with you at once."

"With me?" Had Christine missed rehearsals? In the past three days there should have been only one where she was expected by the conductor and stage-manager, but she assumed everything had been temporarily cancelled in light of the circumstances. She hoped her absence would be accepted as a matter of health even though she had sent no word.

"But do not look for him at his office," the steward said. "He is with MM. les Directeurs just now."

"Thank you, Mathis." Christine went upstairs to the managers' offices. She passed the room where she had spoken with M. Mifroid three days ago, but it was empty. Could she dare to hope he had concluded his investigation?

M. Remy rose from his desk when Christine entered the antechamber. He was beside himself at the sight of her, and insisted upon announcing her to the management at once despite her intention not to interrupt. When the door opened again, she expected to see the secretary reemerge, but instead a young woman stepped out. Christine recognized her as one of the three singers who spoke to her and Raoul at the party, Adalene. The one who said Lord d'Arcy had offered them featured parts in his opera. Her eyes moved down the length of Christine's dress before lifting to meet hers.

"Hmph," she said, and Christine did not know how to respond to the sneering look that followed.

"I ought to slap you," said Adalene.

Christine's heartbeat quickened and she took a step back. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

Adalene shook her head and smiled in a smug way that did not reach her eyes before thrusting her hands into her furs and brushing past Christine to leave the office.

There was no time to calm her heart before Remy opened the door to show her in. She was greeted by the sight of MM. Richard and Moncharmin along with M. Mercier and M. Gabriel, the chorus-master, who she knew only a little. Christine had had no direct conversation with the chief managers of the Opera since they renegotiated her contract after they took over the appointment from their predecessors several weeks previous. Seeing them now, with their grim expressions, she felt as if she were stepping into some trap. When she a moment later noticed the police commissary Mifroid seated at the side of the room, the feeling was sealed.

The air felt close, and the tension between the men was palpable. Christine had the distinct impression she was interrupting an argument, but all five of them were too polite to hint at it in her presence.

They greeted her civilly and inquired after her recovery. She assured them of her health and to her relief, was not chastised for her days' absence.

"It is decided," said Moncharmin with a gesture to Mercier as if he were speaking for the business-manager in some capacity. "Lord Ambrose d'Arcy's opera will be produced on schedule."

Christine took a quick breath. "So soon?"

"Indeed. He left behind a… well, a cast list of sorts, and we are determined to honor his last wishes."

M. Richard did nothing to conceal his harumph as he took a seat behind his desk, but he did not otherwise contradict his partner.

"He had your name noted beside the role of Jeanette," Moncharmin continued. "Rehearsals begin…" He waved a hand in Mercier's direction.

"Tomorrow, monsieur. The stage-manager has confirmed attendance, and M. Gabriel—"

"Tomorrow," Moncharmin cut him off with a nod. And then all of them save Mifroid were staring at Christine as if expecting some grand reaction. Despite his silence, she could not ignore the itching feeling Mifroid's presence gave her. She glanced to him, but his eyes were on his notebook. What did they really want from her? Mercier's fingers were clasping and unclasping the band on the portfolio he held.

"Is that why you wished to see me?" Christine asked him.

"You… You understand what we are saying?" he replied with an anxious glance to Richard.

"I am to sing Jeanette." It was not a role Christine desired to perform, but she dared not refuse it when they were all studying her so closely.

"We think it is for the best," said Moncharmin. "To honor his memory."

"But of course, monsieur." She nodded. "As you wish."

"It is a point of fact," said Richard, enunciating each word as if they were oversalted. "That the public will want to see you, Mlle. Daaé."

"It was well of you not to attend the funeral," Moncharmin said quickly, as if afraid Christine would be offended by his partner's tone and wanting to make up for it. "But, if you will forgive us putting it so plainly, scandal is appropriate for the Opera if not for the graveyard." He shot Richard a pointed look as he continued. "For any patrons who insist upon refunds when they learn you are to perform, there will be countless more eager to purchase seats."

Both Mercier and Gabriel were looking away from the directors now, their faces red in embarrassment. If Christine were not so stunned by what they were saying, she might have reacted the same way.

"We understand," Moncharmin continued, "that you were ah… 'on terms' with Lord d'Arcy. And this was a matter of contention with the Comte de Chagny's brother, who—"

"Enough with this nonsense," Richard interrupted. "We expect you to conduct yourself in a professional manner, Mlle. Daaé. Is that understood? Intrigue sells tickets, but inquests interfere with business."

"Indeed, monsieur," said Mifroid, speaking for the first time from his place beyond their circle.

The room was cramped, too hot, dizziness enveloped Christine. Her hand found the back of a chair and then Mercier was helping her to sit before he turned to entreat the managers in words that blurred in Christine's ears.

They were all talking over each other, but Richard's voice was the only one loud enough to pierce Christine's understanding as he bellowed about "sensitive artists."

It was a glass of water being pressed into her hands that managed to make her focus gather, and she lifted her face to see M. Mifroid turn from her to address the others.

"I would like to have a few words with Mlle. Daaé, if you gentlemen would not mind?"

Her heart seized as she assumed he meant to speak with her alone, but when the men quieted and looked to them both expectantly, she realized the questions would happen then and there, which felt unexpectedly worse. M. Gabriel was no longer in the room, and Mercier was seated on the far side, leafing through his portfolio, but the directors made no guise of intending anything other than observing.

Mifroid turned a chair to face Christine's, and gave her a little smile, his eyes serene in his round face. "No doubt it is strange to you, mademoiselle, to hear gentlemen such as ourselves concerned with such gossip. But I am an agent of the law, and must keep my ear to the ground." He lifted a finger, pointing to the ceiling. "The lower the secrets, the closer we come to the truth."

"Secrets?" Christine shook her head, feeling her hands grow cold around the glass she gripped.

"First, I am compelled to ask, have you had any return of your memories of the night of Lord d'Arcy's death?"

"No, monsieur," she answered quickly, and then was at once afraid she sounded too eager to be believed. She added in a calmer tone. "None. I am sorry."

"Just so." Mifroid gave her the little smile again, which she understood meant to reassure her, but its effect was lost.

"Do you suspect the Vicomte de Chagny?" she asked. She was terrified doing so would implicate Raoul, but she hoped the very genuine fear in her voice was proof enough that she could not believe him guilty.

"In my conference with the examining magistrate, we have developed a theory." Mifroid paused but seemed unperturbed when Christine did not react. "The theory is this: that more than one person was involved in the murder. That is to say, one person committed the act, and another person entirely wrote your name on the wall."

"Oh." It was all Christine could manage. Her eyes felt wide enough to fall from her face, and her heart fluttered in her throat.

Mifroid nodded as if she had provided a much more insightful or articulate reply. "Because it is strange, is it not, mademoiselle? That someone who meant to protect or assist you would thereafter connect your name to such a gruesome affair? No, it is much more plausible, I think, that the murder was committed by someone who was your friend. And your name was written by someone who was not."

He stopped again for effect, but Christine could say nothing, do nothing but stare at him and simultaneously will him to go on and be silent forever. What he was explaining matched so well with her earlier thoughts about the letters on the wall, though she had never considered a second person might have made them.

"Of course," Mifroid continued, "we must chiefly concern ourselves with the one who committed the act. But discovering the identity of our ghastly artist will undoubtedly lead us to the murderer—for surely whoever it was witnessed the incident!"

Christine shook her head. "Who?"

"Ah, but that is just what I mean to ask you, mademoiselle. Can you tell me who might wish to cause a scandal for you?" He opened his notebook and withdrew his pen. "Who would wish to harm you by telling the world that Lord d'Arcy's death was in connection to you?"

"I don't know," she stammered.

"Come now, what of anyone who may have been jealous of the attentions he paid you? He chose you for Jeanette. Your good managers have explained to me it is a coveted role."

Christine at once thought of Adalene, though she never would have if not for having just seen her and the way she acted. Adalene had always been friendly before the night of the party. But could that have changed if she witnessed the murder? Or either of the two girls who were with her that night who Lord d'Arcy made promises to? Adalene sang mezzo-soprano, she never would have been considered for Jeanette. That suggestion didn't make sense. But why was she in the office with these men, and sent out just as Christine arrived?

"Anyone?" Christine said, at a loss, and shook her head. "I am sorry, I don't know, monsieur. No one made any jealousy known to me. But please understand—" She looked up to see the managers watching her closely from the front of the desk. "I was not on any terms with Lord d'Arcy. I did not know him at all."

Moncharmin cleared his throat and Richard rolled his eyes.

Mifroid shook his head and lifted a hand before they could otherwise reply. "Mlle. Daaé, that fact is irrelevant, I am afraid. What matters is that someone—many people, perhaps— _think_  you knew him intimately. Now, if you please, tell me which persons such an idea would offend."

She could only shake her head again. Her eyes found the mirror at the side of the room. Her heart seized at the thought of Erik listening to this conversation. What would he do?

"Perhaps," Mifroid prompted, "some woman who was in love with him?"

Christine's attention snapped back to him. "No, monsieur," she said breathlessly. "I'm sorry. I don't know. I didn't move in his circles. I didn't…" She shook her head, reluctant to explain how she actively avoided him, how viscerally he repulsed her. After the comment about professional behavior, what would they think if she admitted to shunning their new star composer?

She thought again of the cold looks she'd received in the halls amid the warmth of those who wished her well. If she made Mifroid a list of all those who seemed to hold d'Arcy's death against her, she would not know who upon it was more likely to be guilty of slandering her than any other. The thought of throwing false suspicion upon any of her coworkers, despite how they treated her, felt more unforgivable than she could bear.

"I am sorry. I wish I could help you, monsieur." She looked down into the water in the glass between her hands.

"Perhaps you can, Mlle. Daaé. Just so. Perhaps you can." He shifted in his chair and tapped his notebook on his knee with his pen. "You do not know how to answer me now, but producing this opera may change that. You will inform me if anyone in particular comes to your notice? I hope you do not mind me asking this of you."

"Of course, monsieur," she answered again too quickly. But even as she said it, she realized the last thing she wanted was to discover a witness who could confirm the identity of the killer. In her heart, she was truly afraid of knowing who did it.

"Thank you, Mlle. Daaé." Mifroid gave her his little smile again. "Now, just one more thing, if you please. I must ask about the clothes you were wearing. You—"

A commotion outside the room made them all look in the direction of the door. Remy's voice rose in protest as another man demanded to be let in.

"What the devil?" Richard strode toward the noise, but before he crossed the carpet, the door burst open and a man carrying a large portfolio nearly lost his footing as he rushed in. Remy was at his heels, but he froze at the sight of Richard's livid expression.

"Who is this?" Richard bellowed.

Remy's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The man with the portfolio straightened his jacket and crossed past Christine's chair without noticing her, to meet Richard. "I am the Professor Claudin," he proclaimed. He was out of breath, but he made an effort to emphasize his name.

"Who?" Richard turned to Remy. "Get this man out of my office."

"I tried, monsieur. He—"

"Surely you know of me," Prof. Claudin interrupted. "I am the late Lord d'Arcy's silent partner." He glanced at each of the men in the room. Remy took advantage of the moment of stunned silence to slip out the door and close it quickly behind him.

"We wrote  _The Seduction of Jeanette_  together?" Claudin added in frustration. He was of middle age, with more grey than brown in his hair, shorter in stature than Richard, but taller than Mercier, who was gaping at him across the room like a fish out of water.

"I'm here to discuss my payment."

"Payment!" Richard's voice was almost loud enough to rattle the mirrors, but Claudin was unfazed.

"Lord d'Arcy and I agreed to evenly split the commission you were paying him, but before he died, I had not yet received any of my part. When I appealed to his estate, I was ignored. I have these two days past attempted to earn an audience with you and been turned away each time. This is insufferable."

Richard lifted his hands and Christine was terrified he meant to lay them on Claudin in rage at that very moment, but Moncharmin managed to come between them and speak the words that seemed beyond his partner's capacity.

"Lord d'Arcy never mentioned a partner to us, monsieur… ah… monsieur?"

"Professor," he corrected. "Prof. Claudin. But that is impossible. He and I had an agreement!"

"Is that so?" Mifroid stood before either of the managers could react. "I should like very much to hear about your agreement, Prof. Claudin."

"Yes, thank you!" He turned to see who addressed him. "I have been treated abominably. I have—" Here, he stopped at the sight of Christine and all the heightened color of his emotion drained from his face. "Oh!"

Mifroid glanced over his shoulder at her, then returned to the professor with increased interest.

"You are Christine Daaé," Claudin said in a halting voice. "Christine Daaé! If I had known you were—I had no idea." He took a step back and his gaze swept the men.

"Get Remy back in here," Richard snapped at Mercier, but Claudin only stood staring at Christine.

Carefully, she rose from her seat and nodded to him. "Good afternoon, professor." She set her glass on a table.

He tugged at his jacket and adjusted his portfolio from one arm to the other. "Good afternoon, Mlle. Daaé. It is such a pleasure to—I have seen all of your performances. I did not mean to cause a scene. I—"

Mifroid put a hand on the man's shoulder, and he jumped, then glanced to the other men as if he'd forgotten they were there.

"If you please, Prof. Claudin, let us have a few words in private. I am Commissary Mifroid of the Surete." He pressed Claudin's shoulder to lead him to a door in the left wall that opened to a small parlor. The professor followed him, but craned his head to keep his eyes on Christine until Mifroid spoke again.

"Were you at the ball here on Friday night?"

Claudin finally looked at him, a measure of his previous affronted demeanor returning. "I wasn't invited."

"Ah, but did you attend it anyway?"

Christine did not hear his answer as the door closed behind them.

"You may go, Mlle. Daaé." Moncharmin's voice sounded more like a groan than words.

"Until tomorrow." Mercier nodded to her. It seemed he meant to offer a sympathetic smile, but could not quite manage it. Christine felt a surge of gratitude for his effort. Neither of the directors were so much as looking at her now.

"Good day, messieurs." She tried not to rush as she left the room, to move with the ease of one who was not drowning in worries, who was not dreading every moment of singing the role of Jeanette such as Lord d'Arcy had written it, even with this Claudin as a partner.

She wished she had rushed, though, because just before she made her escape, she heard Richard's voice rise behind her.

"What is this on my desk? Where the devil did this letter come from?"

"Red ink," Moncharmin's voice replied. "Not this again!"

Christine pulled the door closed as if doing so could shut out reality. And then she was alone with a very white Remy in the antechamber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments make my day!!


	11. The Composer

 

Rehearsing  _The Seduction of Jeanette_ proved even more awkward than first rehearsals for new works usually were. Christine had had no time at all to learn any of her part in the fifteen hours between receiving her copy of the score and when she was expected on stage to stumble through preliminary blocking. She was hardly the only one to feel lost, though she did not add her voice to the grumblings of the cast directed at the stage manager and conductor.

As they worked through it, she learned that the opera should more rightly be called The  _Seductions_  of Jeanette. The character was involved with no fewer than four men through the course of the opera. Christine would sing a duet each with two tenors, a baritone, and a contrabass, as well as a trio and a quartet between them. Also a women's quartet and two arias. It was a wonder the opera managed to include arias for the men, a trio duel, two ballets, and so many numbers for the chorus as well.

A stage direction notation in the fourth scene of the second act arrested Christine's attention.

_Jeanette undresses and bathes beneath the waterfall as Pierre and Abdoul, hidden, look on._

The men sing a duet, making a bet at who will win Jeanette's love.

_Jeanette overhears them and slyly exhibits her beauty to further inflame their passions._

Christine was not so naive to remain unaware of the fact that half the reason men enjoyed her performances as Siebel in  _Faust_  was to do with the leggings and short tunic she wore. And she had received more compliments than she was comfortable with about her arms when she donned Maruguerite's sleeveless shift for the prison scene.

Surely the director and stage manager did not intend for her to  _actually_  undress during Jeanette's waterfall scene. Her costume mistress would develop some clever garment with layers to be removed, but only to a certain point, for the purpose of conveying the idea of undressing. It would be artifice as everything was at the Opera. Christine convinced herself of this idea in order to continue the rehearsal without trembling, but she could not banish the question in her mind of what Lord d'Arcy might have insisted upon were he alive to direct the production. She found herself for a moment—only a moment—grateful that he was not. And then her sense of self-admonishment overwhelmed her.

They were only marking their blocking as they took notes, so she did not have to enact any of the sly exhibition of beauty the scene called for. But she would be expected to the next time they ran it and was already dreading that day. And the love scenes would be little better.

Jeanette was not a fit for Christine at all.

After they were dismissed, she took herself into one of the private rehearsal rooms, and sat at the piano to pick out the melodies of her part. They were beautiful, every last one of them. They would show her voice to fantastic effect, even if the character was not one she was comfortable portraying. She thought back to what Erik said about d'Arcy's composing on the afternoon before he died. Had he seen the full score? Did he know about Jeanette? Considering how deeply he detested Lord d'Arcy, she could not imagine Erik willingly guiding her in mastering this music, spending hours pouring over note after note of d'Arcy's passion fantasy until she embodied it. Christine felt her face grow hot simply imagining singing any of these duets with Erik. No, she would have to learn the part the way she used to, before he became her teacher.

She was so caught up in going through her act three aria sotto voce that she was not aware someone had entered the room until she heard the door close behind her. Gasping, her fingers pressed the keys in a jarring chord and she twisted on the bench.

A man stood at the door, his hand still on the latch, and he was staring at her like a parched man stares at a mirage. Like she might be the answer to his prayers, but unsure if she was really there.

As her surprise settled, Christine recognized him as the man who forced his way into the managers' office the day before, the professor. "Monsieur," she said, and a moment later, his name came back to her. Claudin.

Throughout the day at rehearsal, she'd caught snatches of whispered conversations about him. He had been seen around the Opera, but no one knew who he was beyond the rumor that he was making claims on Lord d'Arcy's opus. She breathed not a word of her encounter with him, though she'd prickled with fearful curiosity to learn if the police suspected him in d'Arcy's death. She had not dared discuss him with Erik when she returned to his house for the night.

"I beg your pardon, Mlle. Daae." He made her a bow and then clasped his hands before him.

Rising, she moved around the piano. Only once it was between them, did she realize what she had done. He looked so demure that she tried to tell herself she need have no fear of him, but her nerves refused to calm.

He stepped a few more feet into the room and stopped beside the bust of Haydn upon the Grecian pillar in the alcove. "You were playing my music." He gestured to the piano by way of explanation and his lips twitched into a diffident smile. "Playing it—please forgive me—not very well."

Christine nodded, glancing to the edges of the score she could see above the piano's stand. "I like to learn it slowly at first."

"But of course. I…" He moved as if the pages of music were drawing him like a tether, but then stopped himself in the center of the room. "I couldn't help but recognize your voice—I've seen all you performances. I was hoping…"

Christine pressed her hands against the cool, glossy wood of the grand piano. She had not bothered to open its lid. "Yes, monsieur?"

He took a step back. "Forgive me for interrupting you. I should go." But he was only staring at her again, his fingers moving against the bottom edge of his dove grey jacket. "Unless…"

Did the management know he was here? Had he been granted permission to the artists' halls? Christine tried to tell herself again that this man could be of no threat to her, that her anxiety was irrational. Every nuance of his demeanor was opposite of that aspect of Lord d'Arcy's which set her on edge. Even if the worst were true and Claudin was the one responsible for the murder, that meant he was more Christine's friend than almost anyone else in the building. And after all, she was not truly alone in the room with him. That only greater friend of hers was surely close by as he promised—threatened to constantly be.

Claudin took her lack of reply as encouragement to continue. "May I speak with you? That is—about my opera."

"Oh." She looked to the music again, then took a shallow breath and nodded. "Of course."

Exuding a deep sigh, he went to the bench, taking his place upon it as if it had been waiting for him. He ran his hands down the pages, caressing them like a beloved pet and then began to flip through.

"You don't even know…" He sighed again. "You ought to have known it before."

"Before what, monsieur?"

"Him." He practically spat the word. "Ambrose d'Arcy."

Christine winced and looked down at her hands.

"Before his meddling, it wasn't about Jeanette at all. Can you believe it?" He laughed, but it sounded sad. "She was here, she sang the duet with Pierre, but that was all. There was another role. The ingenue, Solange.  _She_  was perfect for you."

Christine looked up at him again. "For me?"

His eyes met hers, but then he cleared his throat and looked back to the music. He began to play—one of the choral movements from the fifth act. "This was her aria," he said after a minute. "I had to save it. I had to use it somewhere. But hear what it's become?" He sighed again. "It belongs to your voice, not the ensemble."

 _Belongs?_  Christine's hands clasped her elbows. "He made you change it?" she asked to divert the subject.

"He cut Solange from the story completely. Jeanette, Jeanette, more Jeanette, that's all he wanted." He stopped playing, his eyes on his fingers, his jaw tightening beneath his thick sideburns. "But Jeanette was never meant for you, mademoiselle."

 _Meant_ for her? The thought of this odd man writing a part in his opera  _for_ Christine when they had never so much as met made her press away from the piano. She had only risen to notice at the Palais Garnier in the past few months. How long had Claudin been considering her? But perhaps, he did not mean it that way. "Did… did he write her passages?"

Claudin laughed and looked up. "Ideas. That's all he contributed. Ideas. The music is mine. All mine. I never should have accepted his offer. But it's still very clever, you know. Even the title. Have you realized? It is a play on words. Jeanette is not being seduced like her suitors prefer to believe.  _She_  is the one doing the seducing. And none of these self-aggrandizing sops realize it." He smacked the score with the back of his hand, but then took the time to smooth out a wrinkle in the corner of a page. "Except for Normand in the last act, of course. Thus he wins her heart, and her hand."

How desperate must a man as passionate about his music as Claudin seemed be to agree to let a man like Lord d'Arcy change his work? Christine thought again of what Erik said the other day, and of the way Claudin described his treatment since d'Arcy's death. How long had he been waiting for payment? Would he ever receive it now?

"Jeanette is a very strong woman, I think." He looked over the piano to Christine again. "It nearly killed me to banish Solange, but I did my best by Jeanette in the parameters he allowed. But I…" Color rose to his face and Christine shifted her gaze past him to the bust in the alcove. "I never considered you would sing Jeanette, mademoiselle. I don't believe any of the gossip, mind you."

"The…" She took a sharp breath, remembering what MM. les Directeurs said yesterday about her rumored relationship with Lord d'Arcy. "Thank you."

"Not a word of it."

She shook her head. "If Carlotta were not on leave, I am sure he would not have… have desired me for the part."

"Yes, La Carlotta." He folded his hands so that the knuckles cracked. "Yes, this is surely a part fit for La Carlotta. I heard her sing Carmen—yes. She could sing Jeanette, perhaps with a few modulations. But you..." He sighed again.

"I will do my best, monsieur. " Christine did not think she need make any false sentiments about honoring Lord d'Arcy's memory. Claudin seemed to miss him as little as she did, though she dared not admit such openly. However, she felt true pity for this man whose work had been so apparently twisted against his intentions.

His lips were parted and he was staring at her again, but he seemed to realize it and rose hurriedly from the bench. "I wished to tell you that… That is, to say—If I can be of any assistance to you—I beg of you to let me know."

"Are you to be involved in the production?" For his sake, Christine wished he might be, and for her own as well. She could hope his admiration of her would guide the production's director to treat Jeanette more modestly, in a way that might allow Christine to embrace the character. She moved to the bench, feeling rude for how long she'd hovered behind the piano.

"Perhaps." He glanced to the door. "I intend to be. It is a matter of discussion at the moment. But even if not so, I place myself absolutely at your disposal, mademoiselle. The quartet in act four—and of course your final aria is particularly complex. It would be my honor to guide your study. I—"

The gas lights in the walls sconces flickered and went out. Christine gasped and heard Claudin take a step back.

"Oh dear, it's—" Before he could finish his thought, the lights sprang back to life, and he looked across at Christine. "How strange."

Wrapping her arms around herself, her gaze darted to every corner of the room. "Thank you, professor," she said quickly. "But I could not possibly accept such an offer."

"Forgive me, mademoiselle." His bushy grey brows furrowed. "I would never mean to insult you."

"Not at all, monsieur." Her voice rose in volume against her intention.

He took another step back, as if sensing she preferred the distance. But before he could speak again, the bust of Haydn sprang from its pedestal as if possessed by the devil itself and thudded into the back of Claudin's legs.

He grunted and Christine darted forward to his aid, but he caught himself against the wall, so she stopped halfway to him.

"Monsieur! Are you all right?"

"Yes." He peered at the bust rocking on the marble between them as he rubbed his calf. "I believe so." It moved a couple more times on the curve of its head before becoming still to stare dumbly at the ceiling. Flakes of plaster settled around it like a rubbish halo. "I must have upset the column."

Christine shook her head, but did not dare disagree aloud.

"Unless—" He gave a nervous laugh. "What they say about the Opera being haunted is true."

A painful breath drew into Christine before she could stop it, and she clenched her hands tightly against her sides to keep from embracing herself as she yearned to.

Claudin looked to her in concern. "I am not serious, of course."

"Ghosts are childish things," she said, her words clipped. "Simple creatures."

He straightened and offered her a faint smile. "But of course."

"If you are quite all right, monsieur, I must ask you to please excuse me. I have much work to do."

The smile faded from his face like a flame dying. "Of course, mademoiselle. Thank you—for your time. For your art. I… Well, I shall leave you to it." He hesitated as he considered the bust on the floor. "I ought to… Well, I shall tell someone to come right it." Making her a bow, he then hurried from the room. Though not without, Christine noticed, a limp.

As soon as his footsteps faded beyond the door, laughter that was more like music than any sound a man should make seemed to fill the room and exist only in Christine's mind at the same time. She squeezed her eyes shut until she was quite certain she wasn't simply imagining it, and then she clenched her jaw, snatched her score off the piano, and strode from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I love you all! Leave me comments and I'll die happy!


	12. Introductions

Only once she was securely behind the latched door of her dressing room did Christine dare to address Erik. "If you are there, be an honorable man, and make yourself known."

Silence was the room's only reply. She let her hand slide from the door and went to set the heavy score upon her table. Her face in the vanity mirror showed plain her irritation, but it was not enough to cloud the fear at the edges of her wide, blue eyes. If Erik had not followed her here, then where had he gone instead? What would he do to that poor professor? It was up to Christine to temper him.

When she took her seat upon the tufted stool, the reflection of the great wall mirror behind her showed the back of her head, her loose golden curls bound in the dark green ribbon that matched her dress, and she wondered if that was how Erik was most used to seeing her—if holding her in his view was even possible from beyond the mirror. Whenever he took her through it by whatever mysterious means it required, she never had a view of her dressing room. It was only the blackness of the corridor. The damp, cold stones. The burning eye of his strange lantern. Perhaps when she was in this room, she was just a Voice to him as ever he had been to her.

"You have behaved well, Christine." The sudden arrival of his voice sounded as if it were in the room with her, and she twisted in her seat to focus on the place it ought to be near the chaise. But of course nothing was there.

She clenched her hands in her lap. "You give me little choice, Erik."

He laughed, and it was edged with the same low, sinister quality of the perplexingly beautiful sound that made her flee the practice room.

"You must leave that poor man alone," she said. "You must not harm him."

"Would I ever do such a thing?"

"Didn't you make the bust of Haydn strike him? I am sure that you did. You are reckless, Erik."

"On the contrary, my dear. Did you observe Erik's hand? I think not. No, that pillar was simply unstable. Old and unstable and the bust was bound to take a tumble sooner or later. But I cannot help if I found it amusing."

Christine's eyes fell to her hands as they wrung in her lap. She did not want to believe he would lie to her. Not about something so simple after all else he had confessed. "Then you are cruel to laugh," she said. "I do not like you well when you are cruel."

"Ah." He sighed, and it was as if the air of it brushed her ear. "When does my Christine ever like me well?"

Her hands gripped each other all the more tightly, and she shook her head. It was not a question meant for answering aloud.

"Come, Christine." His voice slid back to its place beyond the great mirror. To the darkness.

"I shall not."

"I have told you, you are not to leave the Opera. You are not to be beyond my protection."

"And what is it you mean to protect me from?" It was such a more achievable thing to be bold with Erik when she could not see him. "Kind and gentle old men like the Professor Claudin?"

"He is not as gentle as he seems, child. Nor so very old. He is two or three years past fifty at most."

"Can you protect me from the cold looks and sneering whispers of my fellow artists? From the giggling of the corps de ballet as they make signs at me when they scurry past in the passage?" Christine had done her best to turn her cheek to every instance of scorn she experienced at the day's rehearsal. Once the company fully delved into the engrossing work at hand, it faded, but Christine was far too painfully aware of the seat taken from her during their dinner hour, of the wet glass left on her score to make the ink run, of the thick dust and footprints on her cloak after it spent a day on the floor below the hook she had certainly hung it upon that morning. As little as she wished to think of Commissary Mifroid's request to take note of potential suspects, she could not but remember each friend who treated her today as a pariah.

"You cannot," she said when Erik made no reply. "So I beg of you not to make my heart heavier with threats to one who is innocent of that which pains me most."

"I make no threats, my dear. Beware how you wrong me. Now, come to the mirror."

"No, Erik." She did not know why she was refusing. She was very tired, and she could sooner rest if she went with him. She did not cherish the idea of walking the quarter hour to her flat in the cold night air in a dirty cloak. The bed in Erik's home was more comfortable, the music so soothing. But that Erik demanded she come in such a tone, like she was a child in need of sheltering, made her will set against it.

As she fixed her gaze on the mirror before her at her dressing table, a sudden flashing of light rendered her dizzy and she could only barely discern how the shapes of the room elongated in the reflection behind her. Her green ribbon multiplied and folded, and she turned on her stool to see innumerable swimming and spinning Christines that were an instant later replaced by one very still and solid black figure in the center of her dressing room.

Never before had Christine realized how close the ceiling was. Erik's hat nearly brushed it. The mirror behind him, now as ordinary as it had always been, showed the back of his cloak in well-lit detail.

Christine's hand went to her throat and she stood, shrinking against her table. "You… you come into my room…"

"You don't mind, do you?" Erik unfurled a hand, and then turned his masked head to look over the furniture. "I've always thought this a charming room. Private. Well set away from the others."

Christine's momentary shock slid once more into her previous affronted feelings. "You don't frighten me, Erik."

"I should dearly hope not!" He plucked a fallen cushion from her chaise and tossed it to the end of the couch before taking a seat and removing his hat as if he meant to have a long and comfortable conversation with her then and there.

"What do you mean—" Christine's fingers dug against the wood of the table at her sides. She dared not take her eyes from him. Even though he looked relaxed, like he intended to behave himself, she knew that he could coil like a snake at any moment. "Why do you say the professor is not gentle? Do you think… Do you think he killed Lord d'Arcy?"

Erik laughed. He lifted a hand toward his face, but it fell back upon the chaise. "Why must you make me laugh when I am wearing my mask, Christine?"

"I see nothing to laugh at."

"Ah, forgive me."

Releasing the table, Christine took a step toward him, but offered no acknowledgement of the request. Erik would have to look to God if he wanted forgiveness for his wicked humor.

"But no, my dear. I suppose it is possible your dear professor may have killed Lord d'Arcy. And  _for you_  at that matter. But I do not think he did. Because I know who did."

"Who?"

"Your young vicomte, of course."

"You don't know that. You can't."

"I am sure of it."

"Unless you were the one who witnessed—" But Christine did not dare repeat Mifroid's theory of the slanderous witness who first observed the murderer take Christine from the room and then entered it to write the words on the wall. Surely Erik overheard the suggestion as he lurked beyond the understandable perimeters of that meeting yesterday, but Christine dreaded reminding him of it in fear that he might take revenge on such a witness on behalf of Christine's scandal.

Believing the odd professor guilty of the murder-cum-rescue was so much easier on her heart than accepting Erik's insistence it was Raoul. But she had written to Raoul yesterday afternoon and not yet received any reply. The longer she went without hearing from him, the more Erik's ideas undid her hopes.

She could not keep her gaze upon him and it fell to the floor, where a scrap of white cloth by the foot of the chaise stood out starkly against Erik's black.

"Has your maid been negligent?" Erik must have followed her line of sight, because he bent to pick it up. As he flipped it over between his black-gloved fingers, Christine's breath caught. It was spotted with dark stains.

She stepped forward and took the cloth from Erik's outstretched hand. As she unfolded its wrinkles, returned the handkerchief to its square shape, and beheld the elaborately embroidered C in its corner, her hand began to tremble.

Erik's fingers folded around her wrist, but his grip was light, just enough to steady her shaking. "You've never used one like this before," he said.

"It's not mine." Her voice was a whisper. The handkerchief was identical to the one Raoul loaned her the night of the party. Desperately, she tried to remember what she had done with it. Surely tucked it into her dress. Had it remained there, become spotted with what soaked through her clothing, and then fallen out when she changed attire the next morning? What then of the thoroughly sodden handkerchief Mifroid's men found with Lord d'Arcy? Pulling her eyes from the stiff brown spots on the cloth, she looked down to meet Erik's, but could not see them beyond the deep hollows of the mask.

His fingers slid from her wrist and he tapped the initial. "It is Chagny's, then."

Christine shook her head as if she could make it untrue. "He… he came in here that morning, when I woke. He knelt just there." She gestured desperately to the other end of the couch where she had opened her eyes with the first memories she retained. "He must have dropped it then."

Even though he had loaned Christine one the night before, Raoul said he had gone home in the interim. He could have brought a fresh one with him to the Opera that morning and happened to lose it as he fretted over her.

"Oh? I was not aware the vicomte was consumptive. That is blood there, Christine."

She folded the handkerchief to hide the spots. "Perhaps he… he…" Did Erik know about the handkerchief Mifroid showed her and Raoul? Was it possible he was not yet returned to the Opera or not otherwise eavesdropping on that interrogation? If he did know, what conclusion would he draw from this discovery? That the handkerchief Raoul loaned Christine had remained with her the whole time and that the one used to smear the blood words on the wall had been brought to the room of death by someone else? And perhaps lost there in the act of murder and left behind, to be later found and used by the slanderous witness to inscribe Christine's name? As much as she wanted to reject the idea, her mind was no longer capable of it. How could Raoul's handkerchief have come to be in that room if Raoul himself never was? Every accusation Erik made against him felt undeniable now. It was like a firework went off behind her eyes.

And then Erik was standing before her, though she had no recollection of him moving. His hands were on her shoulders, though she could not feel them. The handkerchief was gone. He was saying something she could not hear and she blinked up at him, straining against the cotton wool sensastion in her ears.

A sharp banging snapped Christine back into herself and Erik's hands became tight and heavy, the floor solid beneath her shoes. Her eyes flicked to the reflection of the room's door as she heard a voice rise through it behind her.

"I hear you in there, fiend! Open this door at once!" Another strike upon the wood. "Christine!"

"Raoul," she breathed, and she stepped away from Erik, wrapping her arms about herself.

He laughed low, under his breath.

"Go," she hissed at him. "The way you came."

"Why should I?" Erik made no effort to keep his voice from reaching the door and Christine resented him deeply for it. "Aren't you going to let him in?" he asked.

"Christine!" Raoul's voice came again.

"Go away, Raoul," she called, but her words trembled.

"I shan't! What has he done to you? I'll fetch the fireman to break down the door."

Christine's fingers pressed at her temples and she shook her head. "You let him hear you," she whispered to Erik. "This is your doing."

"And what is 'this'?" Folding his arms under his cloak, Erik put his back to the mirror. "Do you think I'll let you invite a murderer into your room unsupervised? Open the door to him if it pleases you, Christine. I will not go."

It most certainly did not please Christine, but as Raoul shouted once more about retrieving the fireman, she flew to the door and unlocked it. Opening it only enough so that he might see her face, see that she was in no danger, she entreated him with her most desperate look. "Please, Raoul. You must leave at once."

"Christine!" He pushed at the door, and she braced her weight against it. But then his eyes widened and she knew he had caught sight of Erik behind her. And then no amount of her strength was enough to keep the door between them, and she stumbled back against her dressing table as Raoul forced his way into the room.

Though the room was small, she managed to catch hold of him before he could reach Erik and she threw herself between them, her arms straining against Raoul to press him away from the mirror. "Don't," she gasped, though she could not say to which of them she meant most to plead.

To her desperate relief, Raoul obeyed her urging and he stood still. His eyes smoldered with blue fire across the room at Erik's black shape, which had not moved from its posture against the mirror, as if he were but a statue in evening clothes.

She could feel Raoul's pulse pounding as she held him. It terrified her to be so close to him after her thoughts of minutes before, but she dared not release him. And it was a good thing because then Erik laughed at him and Raoul grew stiff and pulled from her.

"No," she gasped, and her fingers dug into his coat like claws.

"Such energy your little killer has, Christine."

Raoul froze, it seemed he was taking in every aspect of Erik's appearance as he absorbed the words. Before he could speak, Christine tried to press him toward the door. "You must go," she begged.

Erik shifted where he stood, seemed to unfurl, and Christine's heart seized. But he only withdrew his watch and languidly checked the time.

"Please Raoul, you are in danger here. You must go home."

"I'm not afraid of this charlatan." Raoul's hands move to Christine's arms, but he did not push her away. "I know who you are. You are Erik. You are a liar and a fiend and you have abused Christine. I know all about you."

Erik laughed, and Christine shook her head, fixing him with a stare of reprimand. "I do not mean from his hand.  _He_  will not touch you. I mean from the police."

"The police?" Raoul pulled from her, but as he moved away from Erik this time, she let him go. "He called me a killer. Surely, Christine, you do not—"

"She knows you killed d'Arcy," said Erik. "Isn't that right, Christine?"

Turning away from both of them, she pressed the door closed. Though it was unlikely anybody would venture to her end of the corridor at this hour, heaven help them if they were overheard. They were surely all three done for.

Raoul stepped after her. "Christine? Tell me you don't believe this."

She shook her head, but she could not face him. She burned to ask him about his handkerchief, but dared not do it in Erik's presence.

"Christine!" Though Raoul's tone was intense, his voice was no louder than a stage whisper. "It is obvious  _he_  killed d'Arcy. He means to twist your mind." He took her arm, but she jerked from him. Her eyes found Erik across the room behind Raoul, but she could only shake her head again.

"He committed murder when he made the chandelier fall." Raoul's face was red with indignation. "He would do it again. You said so yourself." When Christine did not reply, he turned about to address Erik. "He is a violent madman."

"Perhaps." Erik's relaxed, amused tone touched the sparks of fear in Christine's breast, transforming them into embers of frustrated despair. Truly, she could not believe either of them. There would be no solution to this.

"Neither of you did it." Her words came out staccato sharp. "Or one of you. Or both of you. And I do not know. I cannot know! And furthermore, I do not think you can know, either of you. If somehow your memories are as blackened of that night as mine—And why shouldn't they be? Therefore, you both must leave me. I cannot endure this. I must see neither of you again. Let this mystery be our end."

Underneath his cloak, Erik's arms fell to his sides and he pushed from the mirror. Raoul stepped toward her, but she put up her hands. "There is no memory," she said. "There is no proof. There is nothing else for it."

"Christine," Erik's voice came fast. "I could prove to you definitively that it was not done by my hand. There is a way. A scientific way."

"She will not be duped by your humbuggery," snapped Raoul.

Erik glanced to him. "Are you so very uneducated, little vicomte?"

"Raoul, please," Christine gasped before he could retort. "What are you talking about, Erik?"

"If I could see the man's body, I could prove to you that I did not kill him."

"That is a convenient excuse," Raoul interrupted. "As his body happens to be buried!"

Slowly, Erik turned until he was fully looking at Raoul. Fewer than three feet remained between them. He was the taller man by several inches, but with Raoul's shoulders looking broad under his overcoat and his fists trembling with restrained anger at his sides, it seemed he meant to be just as formidable.

The three feet became one before Erik spoke again. "It might be unburied."

As much as Christine wished to dart forward to come between them, Erik's suggestion froze her in place. The sacrilege of it! Even for a man as shunning of Christian ways as Lord d'Arcy, it was unthinkable. Her lips formed the word No, but she lacked the breath to make a sound. But Erik seemed to hear it all the same, for he left Raoul and came to her.

"Unless," he said, "you would prefer to believe me guilty? I daresay it is a convenient excuse for you indeed to think me a monster, isn't it, Christine? To deny me a chance to prove to you my innocence when I have been innocent of so very little else in my cursed life."

She shook her head, she wanted to reject the accusation at once, but the words twisted a knife of genuine guilt into her heart. He filled her view, Raoul disappearing beyond him.

"Before all this," Erik said, "did I not do just as you wished? Did I not give you leave to live as you pleased?" He flicked a hand in Raoul's direction. "In exchange for mere pearls, droplets of your friendship?"

Raoul's insulting words from the other day in the carriage rushed back into Christine's ears.  _How generous of him!_  But though Erik told her often how he loved her, he had never again once demanded that she love him. Not since she made her rejection. If she felt anything more for him than horror or pity, if she was truly his friend, he deserved better from her in this.

"And it is just as convenient for you, I think," Erik went on, "to believe someone handsome, someone born well, like this boy here could not possibly be guilty."

Christine's hands caught his arm before he could gesture at Raoul again, as if every wave of Erik's hand might cast some dark spell upon him. "No," she said softly. "None of that is  _convenient_  for me at all."

Erik fell silent, and his gloved fingers moved to cover Christine's on his sleeve. He stared down at her and she met his gaze unfalteringly. She knew she ought to speak of the sanctity of the churchyard, of the grave nature of the sin he was suggesting. But in this corner of her dressing room, with the light far behind him, she could at last see his eyes beneath the mask. And in her heart, she knew she could not be true to her declaration to abandon him from her life as she a moment ago insisted. If this was the way to resolve it, then she had no choice.

He must have seen the acceptance in her expression, for he pressed her hand before releasing it, and he returned to the center of the room. "It is settled then. We'll dig him up. And I shall show you."

"We?" Raoul demanded breathlessly from where he supported himself against the dressing table.

Erik turned to him. "Shall we take your coach or mine?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave me comments and I'll love you forever and a day!


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